


Gravity Falls Nonsense

by spacetrek



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Will add tags as I go, maybe think of a better title if I can dredge one up, no proofreading we write at unholy hours of the night and die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 23,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetrek/pseuds/spacetrek
Summary: Collection of short Gravity Falls things.  Probably a lot of Ford.This chapter: Pines family game night, set post-series





	1. This Is Just Another Night (And We’ve Had Many of Them)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sad and introspective portal Ford for a rainy night

Sometimes it’s a sight: a blue sky. Green grass. A single bright, yellow sun.

Sometimes it’s a sound: crickets chirping. A bell. A cat purring.

Sometimes it’s a smell or a taste: wildflowers in a field. Evergreen trees. Some kind of packaged pastry.

Sometimes it’s nothing at all. Sometimes his own senses lie, seeing or hearing or smelling something that isn’t there at all, telling him _this is like home_ when it is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It isn’t home. It never is. It never will be.

He is never going home. He knows this. Has known this since before his hair turned grey and his glasses got cracked and his back started to hate sleeping on the ground.

So why does it still hurt so much?

He looks up at the dark sky with its single moon and knows it's not home and aches anyway. His fingers drift to the photograph tucked into the lining of his coat, just over his heart. He doesn’t need to see it to picture it – two small boys standing on a derelict boat, posing with the sun and the sand and the sea for a backdrop. He still remembers that day – the excitement of finally getting enough of the deck fixed up to stand on it without falling through, the sound of his brother having a screaming match with the gulls, the taste of the ice cream they’d bought with a nickel Stan had “found.” They’d both been horribly sunburnt by the time they called it a day, but they didn’t care. They never did.

Back then the only things that mattered were each other and their lofty dreams. Back then he'd believed in greatness and trust and family and a lot of other things.

Ford tilts his head against the tree he’s sitting under, feels the rain misting down from the branches. It’s cold. It's damp. His stomach is twisting with hunger and his leg still twinges where he wrenched his ankle running from the hunters. He lost them some time ago, but he should get moving again. He’s not safe here.

It's funny, in a slightly distressing way, how even with the pain and the hunger and half-dozen other urgent needs pressing on him, all he can think of is how homesick he is.

“Stop it,” he says aloud. His voice sounds hoarse and small, swallowed by the brush and the wet and the emptiness. “You’re–“ _never going to see home again. Never going to see your brother again. Never going to see if those personal computers Fiddleford was so fond of ever caught on. Never…_

He knows all these things, has known them for… however many years he’s been here, but he still can’t bring himself to say any of them. It's like if he hears the words from his own mouth something inside of him will collapse, will die, and he's lost too much already to let go of anything else, no matter how pathetic or foolish it is.

He’s hungry. He’s cold. He’s tired and frightened and sore and this has been his life for years and he should have accepted it by now. There aren't any other options. Maybe there never were.

He touches the photograph again and closes his eyes.

He doesn't dream that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll never write anything at a reasonable hour and I should just accept that now
> 
> title is from "Get Home" by Bastille


	2. It's Down to You and Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More introspection. This time it's Stan, post series

Stan misses Gravity Falls sometimes.

Sure, he might not have moved there under the best of circumstances (they might truly have been the worst set of circumstances in his life, and that's saying something), but he lived there for thirty years and that’s gotta count for something, right?

Maybe when you live in a place that long you start to get used to it, get used to stability and normality and a bunch of other things you never knew you missed.

Maybe in a place like Gravity Falls, the danger and magic and general wackiness becomes a part of you and that part kinda aches when you take it away.

Maybe the place where you lost and found so much stays special no matter where you go.

So yeah, Stan sometimes misses Gravity Falls.

He misses the gullible tourists, misses yelling at Soos and Wendy to stop gossiping and get to work already, misses the Shack and his old bed and the TV that may or may not have been haunted. He thinks about them now and then and feels kinda weird, but.

But.

Ford will run in, grinning like a madman and talking a mile a minute, practically giddy with some discovery he’s made. Ford will leave out a jar of some slimy stuff with a note that says he noticed how Stan was favoring his knee and so he stayed up until God-only-knows o’clock last night making weird science gunk to help with his arthritis. Ford will set a cup of coffee at his elbow because Stan was drooping a bit and yeah, half the time the coffee’s burnt or sludgy or too weak or too strong because Ford got distracted halfway through making it, but he’s had a lot worse coffee made with a lot less good intention and been grateful, so he drinks the damn coffee and pretends he’s only doing it for the caffeine and not for the way Ford smiles at him when he does. Ford will abandon whatever nerd science thing he’s working on to sit out on deck and fish with Stan, and Stan knows Ford hates fishing because Ford hates sitting still and being quiet and literally everything else involved in fishing, and sure Ford sometimes gets distracted and starts rambling about krakens or something, but he’s distracted next to Stan and honestly? That's all Stan ever wanted anyway.

So yeah, Stan sometimes misses Gravity falls, but.

But.

He thinks about how cold and empty the house was after– _after_ , thinks about going through the rooms and _why didn't Ford have the heat on was he trying to freeze to death why is there no food oh my God is that blood what was he doing is he– is he–_

He never did finish that sentence, not once in all the time he lived there. He couldn’t imagine a universe (any of them) where his brother was dead.

He thinks about the same house thirty years later, warm now with the summer heat and the laughter of two crazy kids and how he felt more put together than he had in decades, but there were still pieces missing, still things that hurt every time someone called him “Stanford” because the real Stanford wasn’t here, was gone and _not dead_ but also not here. How Ford should be here, because this was where he belonged, with his house and his family and his world and he was losing so much he should have experienced.

So yeah, Stan sometimes misses Gravity falls.

But.

Ford told him once, when he was so tired he couldn’t even stand upright without Stan’s help, that places had stopped feeling like home to him a long time ago. Thirty years on the run will do that to you; Stan spent ten years of his own hopping from place to place and he still remembers how much it sucked, not getting attached to anyone or anything because you were just gonna lose it all anyway. And Ford had the added shock of coming back to a world that had moved on without him – in some ways, his own dimension was as alien to him as anywhere else he'd been in the last three decades. So maybe places didn’t feel like home, Ford said, but people did. _Stan_ did.

“You’re the thing that feels most like home,” Ford had told him, and it was such a high point in his life that even Ford’s dramatic collapse from sleep deprivation and malnutrition couldn’t ruin it.

So yeah, Stan sometimes misses Gravity Falls. He misses familiar places and things and having a bed that doesn’t throw him out when the waves get rough and a kitchen table that’s not covered in sea monsters guts, but.

But.

These last few months with Ford have fixed something in him that thirty years of fleecing tourists and learning theoretical physics and figuring out how to cook without burning Ford’s stupid wooden house down couldn’t fix.

So maybe when someone asks him where home is he tells them “Gravity Falls,” because most people want a house and an address and a white picket fence and whatever else it is that respectable people have.

But really, he knows that home is wherever Stanford is.

So maybe in that sense, he never really left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More late night writing with a song lyric for the title woo hoo
> 
> I'm not totally satisfied with this one but I'll call it good enough


	3. You Can Roll Up Your Sleeves (But You Don't Need To)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Mabel and a lot of paint, post-series

“Some of the YouTube tutorials say you should wear gloves when you finger paint because the chemicals in some paints aren’t good for you, but that takes all the fun out of it!” Mabel punctuates her words with a wave of her hand, flinging paint on the floor. “You gotta connect with your art.”

“In my admittedly limited experience, everything on YouTube should be taken as tenuous suggestion rather than fact. Besides–” Ford wiggles his paint-covered fingers at her.

Mabel grins. “You’ve got a perfect excuse!”

“I wouldn’t call it perfect – back in college, when I had labs, we all had to wear safety gloves, and obviously they didn’t just happen to have any with an extra finger lying around, so I made do.”

“Booooo.” Mabel swirls the paint on her paper. She had originally been making polka dots, but the red and yellow blobs got kind of big and mixed to orange, so she's making a sunset now instead. “Your college had no sense of style.”

“I won’t disagree with that, but now I have several pairs of gloves that fit perfectly.” He nudges her with his elbow.

Mabel smiles and looks up to thank him for the compliment to her knitting, but the words get caught on a laugh. “Grunkle Ford, you’ve got paint on your forehead.”

Ford tries to wipe it off with his sleeve, which also has paint on it. All he does is smear it a little. He gives up pretty quickly. “I can’t say it makes much difference at this point.”

“You got that right.” Mabel can't see her own face, but she's got that crackly, half-dried paint feeling creeping up her fingers and behind her hairband.

Ford takes a step back from the table and eyes his paper with an intensity he normally reserves for his books and science stuff. Mabel waits eagerly for his verdict. “I think this one’s done,” he says at last.

“Let me see!” Mabel pokes her head over the mess of paint tubes and unused brushes to see what her uncle has been working on. She gasps. “Grunkle Ford, it’s beautiful!”

It looks like the sea, in an abstract sort of way, green and blue and purple swirled to look like water.

Ford rubs absently at his neck, getting purple paint on the collar of his sweater. Mabel kind of likes the color contrast, her mind already considering and discarding pattern ideas for her next knitting project. “You think?”

“Yeah, it’s great!” She pushes her own paper in his direction. “I made a sunset."

He leans down to get a better look at her craftsmanship, and Mabel can't help herself. She leans over and presses her paint-covered hand against his cheek. “Boop.”

Ford wrinkles his nose at her. Mabel’s giggling turns to a yelp as he retaliates, leaving a handprint of his own on her sweater. “Boop.”

Mabel looks at Ford. Ford looks at her. They both burst out laughing.

“I think,” Ford says, “we’re done here.”

“I think so too.” Mabel pulls at her sweater to get a better look at the surprisingly clear imprint of six fingers on her sweater. “Grunkle Ford, I look like one of your journals.” She lights up. “Journal sweater!”

“Hey!”

Mabel spins around and is immediately blinded by a camera flash. When she blinks the starbursts away, she sees Stan grinning at her, camera in hand.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel stops herself from giving him a tackle hug just in time – he probably doesn't want paint on his clothes. She's gonna have to clean up; being covered in paint is really cramping her style, even if she looks like art herself. “Is that for the scrapbook?”

“You bet, kiddo."

“Hello, Stanley.” Ford looks at his paint-covered fingers, shrugs, and wipes them off on his sweater. “Did you and Dipper have fun?”

“I mean, it was just shopping, but we– oh.” Dipper stops short at Stan’s side. “I’m not even gonna ask.”

“We were gonna make marbled paper but we decided to just finger paint instead,” Mabel says cheerfully.

“We are never gonna get this paint off the table,” Stan grumbles.

Mabel shakes a red and orange finger at him. “Grunkle Stan, it’s _washable_. It says so on the bottle!”

“Those things always lie.”

“Regardless of whether or not the paint washes off the table, I think we should at least try to wash it off ourselves.”

“You’re right, Grunkle Ford. But first!” Mabel grabs Ford by his elbow – he won't care; he's already a mess anyway – and tugs him toward the bathroom. “Let’s see if we look like our art.”

“Don’t track paint through my house!”

“It’s _my_ house, Stanley!”

“We won’t!” Mabel hollers, still hanging on to Ford’s sleeve.

One look in the mirror has both of them cracking up.

“We look _better_ than our art!”

“We’re certainly… colorful.”

Mabel hiccups on her laughter. Besides the handprint on her stomach and the disarray of her sweater in general, she has streaks in her hair where she tried to tuck it back behind her ears with paint-y fingers and splotches all over her face.

Ford still has the smear on his forehead and a slightly drippy handprint on his cheek, plus paint spattered halfway up his arms and all over his sweater. He might as well have left the sleeves rolled down.

“I think this is a shower-level mess,” Mabel announces.

“I think so, too.” Ford ruffles her hair, adding blue and purple to the pink and green already there. “You go first; I’ll wash my hands and start cleaning up the kitchen.”

“Are you sure? I can help.”

“Believe me,” Ford says, already scrubbing at his forearms, “there will be plenty of cleanup left for you.” He scowls at the paint, which doesn't seem to be coming off very well. “Why are none of these so-called ‘washable’ paints ever actually washable?”

“False advertising, probably. We could totally make a better one.”

There’s a moment of silence while they consider this.

“Stanley won’t want us to destroy the kitchen twice in one day,” Ford says at last.

“Yeah, probably not.” Another pause. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

Mabel throws herself at Ford, hugging him around the waist. “It’s a date! We’re gonna make the best darn washable paint this world has ever seen!”

“I bet we could make the best darn washable paint in three or four worlds, at least,” Ford says.

“You’re right; we gotta dream bigger. I’m gonna go grab my stuff and I’ll hurry!”

“Don’t bother,” Ford calls as she runs to the attic for clean clothes. “We’re going to be cleaning this up all night.”

Mabel glances into the kitchen on her way up the stairs. Ford's probably right.

Still worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> College has started and my writing quality shows it
> 
> Title is from "Put the Fire Out" by The Colourist because I've been listening to that song a lot while doing homework


	4. It'll Rain a Sunny Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford and a rainy night at sea, post-series

Ford loves rain.

He remembers standing out on Glass Shard Beach while it poured, watching the sea churn and the rain fall. He remembers nights in Gravity Falls, alternately worrying Fiddleford sick with his habit of staying out in inclement weather and driving his poor friend up the wall when he inevitably tracked mud and water all through the house upon his return. He remembers a hundred different storms in a hundred different dimensions, rain colored every shade known to humankind and then some. Not all those downpours had been pleasant – acid rain wasn’t soothing in the least – but he recalls more than one night spent listening to the rain, closing his eyes, and imagining that he was home again.

He’s not sure what it is about rain that he likes so much. He doesn’t know why standing in a deluge both excites and calms him, makes him feel like maybe things will be okay, makes him simultaneously eager to _do something_ and okay with just standing still for a moment.

The feelings should tangle, should make him restless and uncomfortable and jittery, but they never do.

He hasn’t found an answer, and he thinks that maybe he’s okay with leaving this one a mystery. By now he’s learned that innocent pleasures and simple happinesses are best kept innocent and simple.

Whatever the reason, he’s at the rail of the _Stan O’ War II_ , looking out over the heaving ocean and blurry grey sky. His clothes are plastered flat to his body and his hair is dripping into his eyes and he’s thrilled all the way through.

This is a good storm, the kind with multicolored lighting forking almost to the ground and thunderclaps that shake your whole body and wind that tries to tug you off your feet. It’s the kind of storm that screams “the world is wide and magical and just a little bit dangerous,” and that’s the best kind of all. Ford turns his face up to the sky and shivers as the water runs down his neck.

“Sixer, you’re gonna catch a cold; get inside.”

Ford tears his gaze from the sea and glances over his shoulder.

Stan hates rain.

Rain makes him think of being cold and wet and (more often than not) homeless, trying to get out of the storm because it was surprisingly easy to freeze to death when you didn’t have a warm place to go or dry clothes to change into. Rain makes him think of long nights spent alone in Ford’s house, staring out water-streaked windows and feeling completely isolated from the rest of the world. Rain makes him think of slipping and skidding and all the ways you could get hurt, all the things that could go wrong.

Stan is leaning in the cabin doorway. The expression he’s aiming at the storm is darker than the sky, but it softens when he turns to Ford.

Ford is suddenly so happy it almost hurts. He’s soaked to the skin and the world is incredible and his brother is here with him and they’re all okay. He grins at Stan, probably looking halfway giddy, and Stan, a little helplessly, quirks a smile of his own.

“Yeah, I know you like this stuff for some forsaken reason, but it’s getting late and you’re gonna make yourself sick.”

Ford knows his own limits; he’s not risking illness yet and likely won’t be for another fifteen minutes at least. He thinks about telling Stan that, about offering his calculations and experiences. He thinks about Stan’s stories of nearly freezing during one storm or another and knows his brother is only looking out for him, because that’s what they do.

He doesn’t tell Stan that he shouldn’t worry. He doesn’t say anything at all. He just leaves his spot by the rail and ducks in beside his brother.

“Ah!” Stan plants a hand on his chest, stopping him from walking into the cabin proper. A towel is thrust at him. “Dry off some, I don’t want you trackin’ water all over to slip on later.” With that, Stan stumps belowdeck.

Ford obediently dries his face and hair, but his clothes are a lost cause. He strips out of his coat, wraps it up in the towel, and heads off to find dry clothes.

Stan hasn’t emerged by the time he’s changed, so Ford drops his wet things in the corner to take care of later and goes searching for him.

He finds his brother at the galley table, drinking a mug of something. Stan immediately motions him toward the other chair, pushing over a second mug. Ford smiles when he sees it. It’s the mug with the little green alien saying “give me space” – a gift from Dipper. He takes a sip. Hot chocolate.

“Figured you might want something warm to drink,” Stan says, watching him closely.

Ford takes another sip. “It’s very good.”

Stan smiles like Ford’s done something more for him than just compliment a drink. “Learned from Mabel. I, uh, figured you wouldn’t want the glitter or whipped cream or… everything else she puts in.”

“Mm.” Ford has seen Mabel’s hot chocolate. He’s pretty sure it could cause diabetes if you look at it for too long, much less drink it, but he doesn’t have any real proof of that yet.

They fall silent, Ford nursing his drink and Stan staring at his.

“Ford?”

Ford looks up. Stan’s tone implies something heavier than anything else said tonight. “Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re happy.”

Ford blinks. He knows he should respond, but he can’t think of a single thing to say.

“I mean…” Stan looks down at his mug. “This–” his wide gesture encompasses Ford, the hot chocolate, the boat – “was kinda my thing, you know? This is what I wanted. And, uh. I wasn’t sure, for a little while, if it was what you wanted, too. I didn’t want you to be doing this just because you wanted to make me happy, or felt you owed me.”

Ford frowns. That’s not it at all. He opens his mouth to say as much, and hopefully not fumble the sentiment entirely, but Stan beats him to it.

“But I know that’s not true. I figured– I know you want to be here.” Stan’s smile looks a little bewildered, like he can’t quite believe his luck. “You’re happy. And, y’know, that makes me happy, too.” He glances sideways at Ford. “So. I’m glad you’re happy. Even if you do stupid things like stand out in the rain.”

Well. Ford doesn’t have anything better to say than he did ten seconds ago, so he takes a drink of his hot chocolate to buy a little more time. When he lowers his mug, Stan snorts.

“I get sappy one time and you go and give yourself a milk mustache.” Stan knocks back the rest of his own drink like he’s doing a shot and slams the mug on the table with an attitude of finality. “You’re hopeless, Stanford."

Ford scowls and wipes at his lip. “I was going to respond, but I don’t know if I will now that you’ve thoroughly killed the mood.”

“Don’t get snippy; you started the mood-killing.”

“Yes, well.” It’s Ford’s turn to stare at his mug. The little green alien stares back at him. Part of his brain points out that he’s never actually seen a species that looks like this. He tells that part to shut up for now. “In all seriousness, Stanley… I am happy. The happiest I’ve been in years, probably.”

He chances a look in his brother’s direction. Stan is watching him closely, but there’s no judgement, no hesitation. Ford relaxes a little. He’s no good at this, but right now he thinks honesty will be enough. He’s willing to try. “And it’s not just anomalies and adventure – though I would hate to give those up.” Ford picks at a loose splinter on the tabletop. “It’s you, Stan. I’m happy because you’re here.” There, he said it.

Stan’s expression says he’s either doing this very right or very wrong, but unfortunately his brother doesn’t speak up to tell him which one.

The hell with it. Honesty hour is apparently right now. “Back– back when I called you to Gravity Falls the first time,” and he’s talking faster now because if he stops he knows he won’t finish, “and I told you to take my journal and leave – I didn’t understand why you were so upset. I thought it was what you wanted. I thought you were looking for adventure and treasure, and I was telling you to go find just that, and you were so angry with me, and I couldn’t understand it.” Ford meets his brother’s eyes. “It was never about the adventure or the treasure, or even about the boat. I understand now.”

Stan looks like he might actually start crying, and Ford’s not sure what he’ll do if it comes to that. He just knows that it felt important to let Stan know that he really does understand this time, that he gets it and he’s not going to make such a stupid mistake again.

Stan is silent long enough that Ford seriously considers mumbling an excuse and bolting for the bedroom, but thankfully for the frayed remnants of his self control, his brother doesn’t cry. He just clears his throat, loud and unsteady, and sets his hands flat on the table.

“Well now I feel like an idiot for pickin’ on you for ruining the mood, because nothing I say is gonna top that.”

Ford’s relieved exhale is embarrassingly loud and obvious, but Stan doesn’t seem to care. “Will this be an object lesson on thinking before you speak?”

“Pff, you wish.” Stan’s dismissive attitude softens into something much more genuine. “Really, Ford. Thanks for telling me.”

“Of course.”

The silence this time is comfortable and tinged with something almost affectionate. Ford listens to the rain and thinks about home and family and a lot of other sentimental things, and it’s still such a luxury to know that he has all these things now and doesn’t have to feel guilty for thinking about them.

He’s warm and content and maybe halfway to dozing off when Stan speaks up.

“So what’d you do with your wet stuff?”

Ah.

“I–"

“You left it all on the damn floor, didn’t you.” It’s not a question.

Ford raises his drink in lieu of actually answering the non-question.

“Your mug’s empty, Poindexter, don’t think you can get away with that one.”

The mug might be empty, but it hides his smile well enough.

The rain always did make him happy, but it’s never been a substitute for his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be a short character study but hoo boy did it get away from me
> 
> title is from "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" by Creedence Clearwater Revival


	5. If You Get Lost (You Can Always Be Found)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford on being lost and found throughout his life

Stanford Pines is six years old and lost.

This wouldn’t have happened if Stanley had listened to him and taken the roundabout path instead of trying to cut through the boardwalk, but he hadn’t, and they had, and now Stanley is nowhere to be seen.

He doesn't cry. Crying attracts attention, and attention leads to bad things, so he doesn’t cry. He's sure Stanley is looking for him just as hard as he is looking for Stanley.

“Hello there. Are you lost?”

A grey-haired woman is walking towards him. Several pearl necklaces (probably fake) clack against each other as she leans down to see him better.

Stanford shoves his hands in his pockets and stands to his (admittedly unimpressive) full height. “Yes,” he says. He speaks clearly and makes eye contact, because adults like when he does that. “I’m looking for my brother. He looks like me, but without glasses. Have you seen him?”

“I can’t say that I have,” the woman says. “What’s your brother’s name?”

“Stanley Pines.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Stanford Pines.”

“Oh, are you twins?”

“Yes.”

“Aw, how wonderful.” She's looking at him the way old people sometimes look at their fluffy lap dogs or a particularly cute baby. He wants to scowl or use a really big and impressive word or _something_ because he's six, almost six and two-thirds and definitely not a baby, but he doesn't. This woman is only trying to help. “My cousins are twins,” she continues. “Inseparable, the two of them.”

“I wish I could say the same for my brother and me.”

The woman laughs. Her left canine is gold. “Yes, that would–“

“STANFORD!”

The unhappy-sick feeling that Stanford has been trying to ignore for the past five minutes vanishes so fast it’s almost like it had never been there at all.

“Is that your brother?” the woman asks.

“Yeah, that’s–“

“STANFORD, WHERE YA AT?”

“Stanley! I’m at the edge of the boardwalk.” Stanford stretches up on his toes, trying to see over the milling pedestrians.

The woman squeals as something barrels past her, slamming into Stanford and going down in a heap.

“Stanford!” Stanley grins, showing off a missing tooth. “I told ya to keep up!”

“I _was_ keeping up,” Stanford complains, fixing his glasses. “You told me we were going straight through to the beach.”

“Yeah, well, there was this huge guy with really cool tattoos I wanted to see,” Stanley says, unrepentant. “Shoulda been paying more attention, Poindexter.” He pulls Stanford to his feet.

“I’m glad you’ve found each other.”

Stanford glances back at the woman. He’d practically forgotten about her. “Me too. Thanks for your help.”

“I hardly did anything, but you’re welcome.” She fixes Stanley with a stern look over her glasses. “You look after your brother now, young man.”

(Stanford doesn’t know why she’s acting like he can’t look after Stanley just as well. After all, _he’s_ not the one who ran off).

Stanley is puffing out his chest, unintimidated. “That’s my job, lady.”

“Then keep doing it.” With that, she turns on her high-heeled boot and is soon lost in the crowd.

Stanford suddenly finds himself the recipient of a rough and comprehensive dust-off. He slaps at his brother’s hands. “I can brush myself off, Stanley!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stanley ruffles his hair, sneezing as some of the sand flies into his face. “F’real tho, Stanford, I’m sorry I lost you. I think I shoulda paid more attention, too.”

Stanford smiles. “That’s okay. You found me again.”

Stanley slings an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. The last of the unhappy-sick feeling goes away. “I always will, buddy."

*****

Stanford Pines is seventeen years old and lost.

He doesn’t know how to feel

(angry, betrayed)

or what to do

(move on you have to move on)

or why he wants to cry so much

(you’re sad).

He’s not sad. He’s not.

His brother (twin, protector, best friend _only friend_ ) ruined his dreams to try and save his own and that’s all there is to it.

It’s out of his (both of their) hands now.

Things were said, choices were made, and all they can do is move on.

He crawls into bed, shuts his eyes, and recites pi backwards from the 300th digit so that he won’t (can’t) think about anything else.

It still feels like something’s been ripped out of his chest and thrown away, and he’s not sure he’ll ever get it back.

*****

Stanford Pines is twenty-eight years old and lost.

He’s been lied to so many times that he doesn’t even know where to start. Fiddleford is gone, his plans are gone, and his sanity seems well on its way to following the rest.

The only thing that isn’t gone is Bill.

Bill is always there, always watching (can’t sleep can’t sleep) always waiting (trust no one) always ten steps ahead and waiting for him to slip up.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He knows what he has to do

(stop Bill stop the portal stop the madness stop stop stop)

is save the world, but he doesn’t know (anything) how to go about it.

He’s in so far over his head he feels like he’s drowning and he wants to cry, but he can’t because

(tears feel too much like blood)

there’s too much to do.

He wakes up with bruised ribs and scraped knuckles and he looks at the blood and ink and tears in his journal and he flips back, way back to before everything went wrong, back

(when he was seventeen, because maybe things have been going wrong ever since he lost the one person who truly looked out for him and oh god was he only ever meant for this?)

to the start. He sees what’s left of the sketch he made of a boat, months (years?) ago.

He remembers a photograph.

He remembers what it felt like to trust someone.

He finds a postcard, and he writes a note.

*****

Stanford Pines is twenty-nine years old and lost.

He’s kept track of the days since he fell (was pushed) through the portal, and he’s terrified of forgetting where he’s been, what he’s done, who he is.

(He remembers Fiddleford with his memory gun, steadily erasing piece after piece of himself and what’s left of a person when their entire history is gone?)

He thinks he might know the answer to that question, and he thinks he doesn’t want to.

He has no history here, after all. He’s a drifter, a vagrant (an outlaw). He has no name, no title, no… anything.

Nothing. He’s nothing.

 _The universe is enormous,_ he used to tell Fiddleford. _We’re all just specks, really._

If only he’d known.

*****

Stanford Pines is older than he was yesterday and lost.

That’s how he keeps score now – in days, hours, minutes. _I survived._ He lost track of the weeks/months/years a long time ago, and they aren’t important anymore.

He’s not important. He never was. He understands that now.

The only thing that matters is killing Bill, saving the universe.

(If the screams and nightmares and laughter bouncing around inside his skull stop as a side effect, well, that’s just a bonus)

(He’s pretty sure he’ll die with Bill anyway, and that’s certainly effective, if unfortunately extreme).

It’s hard to know for sure where you’re going in the multiverse. Ford hasn’t really known where he’s been for… some time.

He’ll find his way eventually. He has to.

*****

Stanford Pines is fifty-eight years old and lost.

This dimension is his home, and it’s the most unfamiliar place he’s ever been. Everything is just slightly left of familiar, minus his house, which is so changed he barely recognizes it as his at all. It’s even worse than the Uncanny Valley Dimension, because at least that place was supposed to be that way.

This place feels like it _should_ be home, but it’s _not_. He doesn’t feel at home, not at all, and it hurts more than he wants to admit.

(Maybe he’s just forgotten what home is supposed to feel like. Maybe he lost himself in the universe after all).

And as if that isn’t enough, he has family he never knew about, never even imagined. It’s been years since he's interacted with children, and longer still since he’s had family. He doesn’t know what to do. What do they expect of him? How should he act?

They’re twelve, almost thirteen, and he doesn’t let himself think about how he never got to see their formative years, never got to watch them learn and grow almost to their teens. In the grand scheme of things, he’s lost far more than the early years of two short lives, but this loss seems heavier somehow.

They help him find where his brother keeps the coffee (two cabinets away and a shelf above where he used to keep it) and teach him about smartphones and music and movies and it all really just makes his head hurt, so he hides in the basement whenever he remembers to do so.

(He tells himself it’s because he has more important things to do than watch a musical with a twelve-year-old, and not because those “important things" feel tired and worn and more like a weight than a vocation).

*****

Stanford Pines is fifty-eight years old and he’s lost everything.

He’s been tortured and terrified and today he cried for the first time in years because the world ended, and then it didn’t, but it might as well have because his brother is gone.

Stanley took the fall for his mistakes, and there’s nothing Ford can do to help him in return.

He can’t even thank him for anything (everything), because Stan won’t know what it’s for.

He remembers being six years old and lost in a crowd, being twenty-eight and lost in his own head, being thirty-forty-fifty and lost in the multiverse, and how Stanley never hesitated to come and find him and try to bring him home.

He remembers how no matter how frightened and adrift he felt, Stan was always there to ground him.

(Even when he was wandering the multiverse, he had an old photograph and old memories and the fragile hope that Stan had moved on, found a place and a life for himself and was happy somewhere back on Earth.

That hope was all he had some days, because he lost assurance for himself a long time ago, but he never quite lost it for his brother).

_(You found me / I always will)._

Now Stan is gone, and there’s nothing to stop him from falling apart.

*****

Stanford Pines is fifty-eight years old and he thinks he’s finally found his place.

He’s sitting upright against the chair in front of the television. It’s still on, but no one is watching it. His brother is slumped against his shoulder and his niece and nephew are sprawled out across their laps. Stanley is snoring and probably drooling on his sweater and he can’t feel most of his left leg where Dipper’s head is resting and he doesn’t remember ever caring less about physical discomfort in his life.

He shifts to prop Stan’s head up a little more, so that his brother’s neck won’t hurt as much when he wakes up (the logical thing, of course, would be to wake Stan and the kids so that they can go sleep in their own beds but Ford is definitely not going to do that), and he’s pretty sure he just waved goodbye to feeling the entire left side of his body for the next few hours, but that can’t be helped.

For the first time in

(thirty years? Forty? There’s no calculation for human experience, he knows that, but he still feels the need to quantify, to assess, to put a name and number on the past _however long it’s been_ and file it somewhere he’ll never have to look at again.

He knows it doesn’t work like that, but he thinks about it a lot)

a long time, he doesn’t feel like he’s searching, chasing something.

For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t feel like he has to.

He’s been given a second chance, a place to belong, and that’s all he ever really wanted anyway.

He’ll stay here as long as they let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this might actually be the most melodramatic thing I’ve ever written and frankly that’s an achievement. I was guesstimating ages during canon events and my math skills are sadly lacking so bear with me here
> 
> title is from “Home” by Phillip Phillips and I definitely didn’t write this on my phone while listening to the radio in the car


	6. (We Don't Care) If They Don't Understand Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper and Ford have a talk about weirdness and bullying. Set sometime the week before the kids leave

“Grunkle Ford, do you think I’m weird?”

Ford doesn’t look up from his journal. “Of course I think you’re weird. That’s what makes you interesting.”

Oh. Well that makes sense, right?. Dipper’s never thought about it that way, but now he feels like he should have. He loves anomalies because they’re weird. Ford is weird (who shaves with fire?), Stan is weird, the less said about Mabel the better, and he loves all of them, too

Dipper’s got a few followup questions, but Ford already looks like he’s forgotten his presence for the moment. That’s okay; Dipper’s lucky to have gotten any response at all from Ford while he’s working. He scrambles up into the chair beside Ford to see what his uncle is doing.

He barely gets a glance at the impressive rendering of the tree nymphs they found a few weeks ago before Ford speaks up.

“What brought this on?”

“What?”

“Your question.” Ford actually shuts his journal and shifts to face Dipper more fully.

Now that he’s got Ford’s full attention, Dipper quickly decides that he doesn’t want it. “Uh, not much.”

Ford frowns. “Even I can tell that’s not true. If you’d rather not say, Dipper, just tell me.”

And yeah, that’s just like Ford. Mabel would wheedle, Stan would try to trick it out of him, but Ford doesn’t push. He just sort of… waits.

It’s a surprisingly effective technique, because Dipper finds himself spilling after an embarrassingly short hesitation.

“It’s just – a couple teenagers on a tour with their parents were talking this morning. They were saying stuff about how the Mystery Shack was a weird freak show run by a bunch of weird freaks and they didn’t know why someone hadn’t shut the place down yet. I know it was just some stupid bored kids saying stupid things," Dipper adds hastily, “but, you know.” He chews his lip. “It just kinda reminded me of stuff kids say at school sometimes.”

Ford is silent long enough that Dipper looks up at him, confused. His uncle is watching him with an expression that he can’t quite figure.

“It’s– it’s not a big deal. I just–"

“Don’t say that.” Ford reaches out to cover both of Dipper’s hands with one of his own, and Dipper hadn’t even realized that he was picking at his nails again. “It’s a big deal to you, therefore it’s a big deal to me. And, well. I understand.”

“You do?” He doesn't mean for it to come out so incredulous, but Ford always seems so brave and confident, so much larger than life. He doesn’t care what a couple idiot teenagers think.

So maybe he’s not entirely over his hero worship of the author. He’s working on it.

Ford smiles wryly. “Dipper, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m rather weird myself.” He taps Dipper’s fingers with his own, and oh yeah, that would do it. “I’ve largely learned to live with my own quirks and foibles, but I was much more insecure as a child.”

“Really?” and he kicks himself like _don’t sound so hopeful you idiot._

“Really. I don’t know how much you saw when you read my thoughts,” _haha yeah, that was a thing that had happened_ “but I still think about… people who hurt me, sometimes. And not just Bill.”

Dipper glances at Ford’s hand. His sleeve has ridden up a bit, showing the bandages he still has to wear around his wrists because of what Bill did to him. Dipper thinks about the pages on Bill in the journal, wild scribbles and blood and ink and _trust no one._ He thinks about what it would take to drive his strong-willed uncle to those extremes. He carefully pushes those thoughts aside and reminds himself that Ford is doing better, that they’re all doing better.

Ford’s voice pulls him from his introspection. “Those things stay with you.”

Blunt honesty. Another Stanford Pines (original) staple. “I know.”

“I know you know. And I wish you didn’t.” Ford’s hand tightens around his. “Dipper, I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen to me very carefully.”

Dipper looks up, startled. “Y–yeah, of course.”

Ford’s eyes go distant for a moment as he gathers his thoughts, then he turns to Dipper with something like urgency. “For a long time, I let people tell me how to feel. I let bullies and– other people, tell me that I was a freak, and I believed them. Why shouldn’t I? They were all saying it, and surely they couldn’t all be wrong.” Ford’s hand squeezes even tighter. Dipper’s mouth is starting to feel a little dry. “I let them make me believe that I deserved to be treated a certain way” _badly, cruelly,_ he doesn’t say, but Dipper knows it, hears it anyway, “because I was different. I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Dipper stares down at their hands. It feels like there’s something stuck in his throat when he swallows.

“Dipper.”

Hesitantly, he looks up at his uncle. Ford looks sad now, but still intent. "I was wrong, more wrong than I can possibly say. Nobody deserves to be treated badly because of who they are. Not me.” A meaningful look. “Not you. Don’t make my mistakes. Believe me when I tell you that you are one of the smartest, bravest, most worthy people I have ever met, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Ford jostles his hand gently before pulling away. “Be better than me, Dipper.”

Dipper really doesn’t want to start crying, but he’s not sure that’ll be an option if Ford keeps talking, so he does the only other thing he can think of – he slides out of his chair and throws himself in for a hug.

Ford grunts sharply, and Dipper suddenly remembers the other bandages under his uncle’s sweater. Face burning, Dipper pulls away, but he doesn’t get half a step before he feels a hand on his back and another on top of his head, pulling him close. It’s a little awkward and his arm is bent at a funny angle and he’s having a hard time breathing where his face is smashed into Ford’s sweater. It’s also one of the warmest and most genuine hugs he’s ever had in his life, and he lives with Mabel.

To his surprise, Ford doesn’t pull away as soon as it would be polite to do so. In the end, Dipper actually untangles himself first, after weighing his need to breathe against his desire to continue the hug. The potential mortification of passing out finally galvanizes him, and he gently tugs himself away.

Ford is watching him closely.

“Thanks, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper says. _For everything,_ he means.

Ford smiles. “You’re welcome, Dipper,” he says. _For everything,_ Dipper hears.

They stand in silence for a moment, then Ford clears his throat.

“If someone picks on you, the first course of action should always be contacting an authority figure or trying to communicate with the misguided individual,” he says. “But if that doesn’t work, I have quite a collection of hexes memorized that I’d be willing to share with you. Those should discourage even the most tenacious bully.”

Dipper snorts in spite of himself. “I think I’d get kicked out of school.”

“Not if you don’t get caught.”

“Now you sound like Stan.”

Ford blinks, startled. One corner of his mouth quirks up. “I suppose I do. I mean it, though. Nothing lethal, of course, but enough to persuade.”

“Yeah, I think I’m good,” Dipper says.

Ford shrugs, unoffended. “That’s your prerogative. I’m sure Stanley will teach you how to box, if you prefer a more… direct solution. Now!” Ford claps his hands together and jumps out of his seat. “I’m off to see if I can find those tree nymphs again. I believe I’ve figured out where I went wrong with their language, and I think they’ll be less hostile this time around.”

“Didn’t Grunkle Stan say you were supposed to stay near the Shack until your burns have healed more?”

“They’re plenty healed; they don’t even itch.”

“They literally haven’t healed enough to itch,” Dipper points out.

Ford, predictably, waves that off. “Yes, yes, I’m sure they’ll itch like the blazes in a day or two. I’ll have to come up with something to fix that. But a day or two still gives me plenty of time to find those tree nymphs!”

Dipper gives up. He’d known that he wasn’t going to win this, but he at least had to try. “Okay, fine. On one condition.”

Ford stops shoving random things (is that a cheese grater?) into his coat pockets and cocks his head suspiciously at Dipper. “Blackmail?”

“What? No, I just want to come with you.”

Ford lights up. Something warm and happy settles in Dipper’s stomach. “I’d like nothing more. Come now, we have to leave before Stanley wises up. Grab that snow globe on your way out; we’re going to need it.”

Dipper runs after his uncle, an afternoon of adventure, frantic jogging to keep up with Ford, and possible panicked running from angry tree nymphs opening up before him.

So yeah, Dipper's weird. So is Ford. So is Mabel. So is his whole life.

He can’t help but think it’s a pretty good one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was meant to be a heartfelt conversation ending with a heartfelt hug and nothing else, but Ford is still Ford and Dipper is still an enabler. Stan’s going to get at least fifty “I told you so’s” out of this
> 
> title is from “Irrational Anthem” by Plain White T’s


	7. Out of My Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> super short thing set during Not What He Seems

Stan held his breath–

–and let it out.

The portal was on. It worked. It was done.

Ford was coming home.

He caught his hat as it floated away. He remembered reading about this in the journal – gravity flip-flopping when the portal was activated. He didn’t care.

Ford might yell at him for it, but he would be here and _alive_ to do the yelling.

He would be back with his family.

Today was the day everything changed.

*****

Dipper grabbed for the stair rail as his feet left the ground. “Mabel!”

“I’m here!”

Dipper twisted himself around to see his sister where she was clinging a few feet away. Her face mirrored his, fear and desperation and more than a little betrayal. Stan was not what he seemed. He might not be their uncle. He’d definitely been lying to them all summer. Everything was unreal and wrong.

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know!” Dipper pulled himself up the rail until he could reach Mabel’s hand. They held on to each other, one solid point of contact in a world that was literally turning upside down.

Whatever changed today, they’d face it together.

*****

The gravitational anomalies were a only a symptom of a much larger cause.

It felt like the entire world was shifting, tilting, tipping inexorably toward a point where it couldn’t come back.

This thing that was coming would change it all.

Houses tore their foundations.

Relationships tested theirs.

_Mabel, please!_

The universe held its breath–

_I trust you._

–and let it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this hurricane is a miracle for my production levels in everything but homework
> 
> title is from “Something Big” by Shawn Mendes because it came on the grocery store and I got this idea


	8. If I Have Love, My Heart Still Beats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five times Ford helps a random animal on his travels, and one time a random animal helps him

**1.**

The animal trailing after him looks so much like a dog that Ford thinks he could be excused for his sudden bout of un-self preservational homesickness.

…….also it’s dirty and skittish and half starved and his mind is drawing some very unflattering (but not, unfortunately, inaccurate) comparisons to himself, and yes, fine, he feels a sense of kinship with this fellow vagrant.

He stops walking and crouches to the ground, fumbling through his pockets for whatever actual food he’s still got. The dog-thing probably won’t want his nutrient pills, and he’s loath to part with those anyway. All he finds is a packet of dry, probably stale flatbread. Well, beggars can’t be choosers, and this dog probably falls under the former category at least as much as he does.

“Hello.” It’s been days (weeks?) since he had any real sort of conversation with anyone, and he hardly knows where to start. It’s not like he was ever good at this anyway. “You look malnourished and I have food and want to help you, so why don’t you come here and take it?”

The dog (he’s just going to call it a dog until he finds out what it actually is or has time to come up with a name himself) stares at him a moment, but refuses to approach. Ford tosses the bread toward it, and after a moment of suspicious sniffing it gulps down the offering, then looks back at him.

“Yes, I have more.” The dog’s tongue lolls out when it spots the bread, but it continues to eye him mistrustfully.

Really, he has to stop comparing himself to a dog. It’s not good for either of them.

“I’m not going to take it from you.” He sets the food on the ground and backs away. “I shouldn’t be here at all. I have to keep moving.” He turns his back and sets off, and he does not feel more homesick than he did five minutes ago.

When he looks back, the bread and the dog are both gone.

 

**2.**

“I can’t help you.”

“….."

“I barely have enough supplies for myself.”

“…..”

“I only just made it out of the marketplace ahead of the hunters. If they catch me I’ll be lucky if they only want my head on a stick.”

“…..rggghh.”

The air leaves Ford’s lungs in a sigh that nearly displaces the scarf over his mouth and nose. “Why does no one ever listen to me?”

“Hf.”

“For that matter, why don’t I ever listen to myself?”

Resigning himself to his fate, Ford kneels beside the… something, already searching through his pack for bandages and one of the instant-set splints he finds so useful on his travels. “If you move while I’m applying this and make me waste it,” he says, shaking the splint in the creature’s face, “I’ll leave you here.” A pause. “Do you have a name?”

The creature stares at him, then snorts.

“Lovely.” Ford sets the splint against the damaged limb (fractured, not broken; a miracle considering the stick-thinness of the appendage in question) and wraps it tightly. “Next time consider navigating the cliffs with more caution.” The animal lurches to get to its feet, and Ford grabs its… ear? antenna? to steady it. “Easy, not all at once!”

There's a tense moment where both Ford and his patient are almost sent tumbling down one of the planet’s ubiquitous ledges, but the creature finds its footing and straightens up. Ford dusts himself off and stands as well, noting that the thing is now a good two and a half feet taller than he is. “Well, that’s that.”

The creature thumps him with its head, sending him back to the ground. He rubs his now-aching shoulder. “You’re welcome. I wasn’t kidding about the hunters, though. I have to go.” He chews at his cheek. “Take care of yourself.”

 

**3.**

“We can share this hiding spot, but only if you’re quiet.”

The U’bazarr seems okay with this contract, and curls up at his feet.

He supposes it’s rather cute, in its own way, and he wouldn’t leave anyone, man or beast, to the tender mercies of Korvex 7’s civilian security.

“They’re thugs, really,” he says to his fellow escapee. “Anyone who’s big and mean enough to take power and keep it can have it. They’re bullies.”

Bullies, Ford has found, are one of those regrettable multiversal constants.

“Yee-row.”

“I don’t like them either, but I can’t stay to do anything about it. I’ve got… a bigger bully to stop.”

The U’bazarr blinks all six of its eyes at him. Ford feels a familiar and unwelcome twist in his gut.

This whole thing would be immeasurably easier if he just didn’t care so much.

“I suppose I can at least help you.” He holds open his coat. “Come on, now. I’ll get you out of here and you can go… make a family, or whatever it is you do."

With a distinctly delighted trill, the U’bazarr plasters itself against him, clinging to his shirt with pinprick claws.

Ford folds his coat back up over the creature and looks himself over.

“Two shiftless vagabonds disguised as one harmless, overweight traveler.” He grins at his temporary companion. The U’bazarr shows its three rows of teeth in return.

“Let’s go hoodwink planetary security."

 

**4.**

He could, perhaps, be forgiven for assuming that lakes on public land were public property and thus fair game for anyone to forage for food and water.

Staying to argue about it with law enforcement is entirely his fault.

“If it’s in a city park but it belongs to a random civilian, perhaps you should post signs about it to let people know.”

His translator picks up the clicking language of his jailer as he’s shoved into a cell.

“It’s common knowledge.”

_“I’ve never been here in my life; how could I possibly-”_

The door slams shut. Ford doesn’t kick it out of sheer petulance, but it’s a near thing.

He turns to face his cellmate and is met with the wide eyes and stubby wings of some native bird.

“Well I suppose we’re stuck together.”

His captor speaks up from outside. “It can’t understand you. It’s an animal.”

“You’re locking up non-advanced creatures? For _what?_ ”

“Unauthorized fishing.” The guard skitters away down the hall.

“You’re joking.” Ford lets his head fall back against the wall with a thump. “This is a joke. It’s all a terrible joke. Like my current existence.”

His cellmate offers a sympathetic coo. He sighs.

“Apologies for the melodrama. It’s been a long day.” He fishes around in his pockets and tears the lining of one, coming up with a metal disk the size of his thumbnail. “This has enough charge to blow that door right off its hinges.” He flicks it up in the air and catches it. “I’m leaving, and you’re coming with me.”

Ten minutes and several new bruises later, Ford sprints out of the town jail with his gun, a miniature radio that used to belong to a guard, and his fellow escapee.

“Well,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at their furious pursuers, “this is where we part ways. I wish you the best of luck.”

The bird is already winging away over the treetops. Ford sort of wishes he could follow. He settles for waving as hard as he can.

“If you ever go back to that lake, illegally catch a fish for me!"

 

**5.**

“You’re remarkably well-mannered for a reptilian.”

The snake (and it really is just a snake, on a parallel earth that’s making his head spin and his chest ache with its familiarity) hisses at him.

“I have nothing against you on principle, but your kind seem unusually prone to seeing me as food, a pet, or both.” A moment’s thought. “I suppose that’s fair, considering I’d eat you if I had nothing else. I do though, so no need to worry.”

The snake ignores him, because it is a snake and doesn’t understand him.

Perhaps he’s more starved for company than he previously assumed.

A rustle in the undergrowth sends Ford’s hand flying toward his gun. Closer inspection reveals one of the smaller native predators, which snarls at him before turning tail and fleeing.

“That could have gone worse.” He sits back on his log and takes a breath, counting to ten and back down again to settle himself. He glances at the snake. “My presence saved your life. You could at least do something interesting, like grow spines or start talking.”

The snake ignores him. Because it is a snake, and doesn’t understand him.

Ford sighs.

He hopes civilization isn’t too far away.

 

**+1**

Out of all the planets in the multiverse, about a fifth are mostly or entirely frozen.

Out of all the frozen planets in the multiverse, all of them usually wind up hurting him in some way.

Ford feels vaguely slighted, but facts have never changed themselves to appeal to anyone’s sense of fairness, and they’re certainly not going to start with him.

The fact that he’s currently freezing to death with a twisted ankle doesn’t seem to be changing just because he finds it unfair, so he should probably do something about it.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to think right now.

Ford tries to shift his uninjured leg. It takes three tries and a lot more effort than he can afford to expend right now, because it’s been frozen to the ground.

He has the absurd thought that maybe if he just lies here and lets the snow cover him, his own body heat will unstick him from the ice.

It’s absurd, of course, because by that point he’ll already have frozen to death.

He still doesn’t move.

Distantly, he thinks he should be panicked about this, but he's not exactly sure why. He’s so tired, and he can’t remember when he ate last, and he kind of just wants to lie here forever.

_You might, if you don’t get up._

Get up. Yes.

Summoning every bit of strength he has left, Ford manages to drag himself halfway up. His leg twinges painfully, reminding him that even when he’s too numb to feel 98% of his body, the remaining 2% will still hurt.

There’s nothing ahead of him but drifts of the frozen purple stars that resemble snow on this world, and now the fear is starting to set in.

He can’t die. Not here. Not like this. He hasn’t finished his mission yet.

A huffing noise sends him slipping and falling to the ground, leg protesting even as he reaches for a weapon.

He stops.

The creature standing over him looks vaguely like a llama, if llamas were the size of elephants and had mountains of fur that fluffed out like clouds all over.

Actually, it looks more like walking cotton candy. With six spindly legs and two big dark eyes.

Big dark eyes that are currently examining him with something like curiosity.

Ford tries to speak and nearly bites his tongue off with his chattering teeth. He tries again.

“H-hello. I d-don’t suppose you can understand m-me.”

The creature cocks its head.

“I’d offer you s-something to eat, but.” He takes a deep breath, body shuddering all over. “I don’t really have all that much.”

He abruptly, ridiculously, wants to cry.

“I’m t-trying,” he says to the uncaring animal. “I’m trying s-so hard, but it’s just not–”

It doesn’t let him finish his sentence. Instead, it flops down beside him, nearly crushing with its bulk.

Startled, Ford squirms away. It catches him by the collar, yanking him back.

“I don’t–”

He’s cut off yet again, this time by a huge red tongue licking across his face.

He splutters, spitting the taste of its tongue off his own and rubbing at his smeared glasses

At least they’re not covered in ice anymore.

When his vision clears, he sees the creature has pushed some its copious body fur aside, making space for him at its flank.

He eyes it, wanting to be suspicious, but unable to muster up anything more than the dregs of old paranoia.

“If y-you’re just planning to eat me later, I’d rather n-not accept.”

The creature catches by the back of the neck again, and this time he lets it drag him into the warm nest of its fur.

Perhaps uncaring is the wrong word to describe it.

“I’m p-pretty sure this is just sharing body heat, but it benefits us both, so I won’t complain.”

The animal sneezes at him and shifts a little, tucking its nose under its forelegs.

Cautiously, Ford tugs some of its fur to block the wind a little better. When he’s ignored, he more or less makes himself a blanket.

Who knows when he’s going to be this comfortable again?

He needs to splint his ankle. He wants to study this creature more closely.

His body vetoes both of these ideas by reminding him how extremely tired he is.

“When I wake up,” he mumbles against his unlikely savior’s side, “I’m going to draw a very nice picture of you in my journal.”

A rumbling grunt is the last thing he hears before sleep takes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The working title of this in my notes was “Ford likes to think he’s hardcore and completely logical about this drifter/outlaw thing but he’s actually a huge emotional pushover and would risk his life for one (1) random space anomaly"
> 
> the actual title is from “Homeward” by VNV Nation because it sounds better than my working title


	9. And We are Full of Stories to be Told

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford catch up on thirty years of separation and move on together, post-series

They talk a lot, after everything.

It’s one of the first things Stan remembers about Ford, is how much his brother loves to talk.

Well, how much he loves to talk about specific things. Ford can and will ramble for hours about the toenails on some monster, but ask him for a personal story or how he’s feeling and you’ll be lucky if he deigns to waste words on a dismissal.

So when Ford sits down next to him one night after the kids leave and says, “I know you’re curious about where I’ve been for the past thirty years. What do you want to know?” it takes Stan a minute to find an answer.

His knee-jerk answer is ‘everything,’ and that’s the truth. All the memories he has of Ford are very old or very new, and he knows how lucky he is to have those memories, even if they’re not all good. He wants to know anything and everything about his brother that he can, even if it’s just secondhand.

But his more thoughtful answer is ‘I want to know what you want to tell me,’ and that’s equally true. He’s sick of Ford trying to do things because Ford thinks he owes Stan, because Ford thinks he owes the world. The world hasn’t done a damn thing for Stan, and even with all the worlds Ford’s been to his track record probably isn’t much better. They just saved the entire universe; it probably owes them at this point. With interest.

So when Stan actually goes to answer, he says, “What do you want to tell me?”

Ford shifts, and it’s his _I’m about to lie_ shift. “I want–”

“No, hold up.” Stan butts in before his brother can dig himself deeper. “Ford, do you want to tell me any of this?”

Ford shifts again, and it’s not his _I’m about to lie_ shift, but it’s not his _I’m about to tell the truth_ shift either. “Well, you want to know. It’s what you want, so it might as well be what I want.”

Stan wants a lot of things, and he can guarantee that Ford doesn’t want at least half those things. He’s got no less than ten bad jokes he could ruin the mood with right now, but he really does want Ford to talk to him. Not because Ford feels like he owes Stan something, but because he trusts Stan.

So he says, “That’s not what I asked.”

Ford frowns and shifts a little more, and finally he’s telling the truth. “There are things I want to tell you, and… things I would rather not tell you.”

As if Stan doesn’t understand _that._

So he says, “How about this – we both missed out on a lot. Why don’t you tell me a story, and I’ll tell you one back?”

Freely given and received. No more cycle of anger-guilt-debt. That’s what Stan wants, and he thinks Ford wants it, too.

Ford smiles, and his posture relaxes. Point for Stan. “You’ve already heard several of my stories. I was planning to share some of the– less kid-friendly ones, but you’ve got the advantage, regardless.”

And that’s Ford making a joke. It’s terrible, but they can work on that. “So I have,” Stan says, humoring him. “Go for it, Sixer. What do you wanna know?”

Ford is silent for a long moment. “You mentioned… chewing your way out of the trunk of a car, but I suppose that’s one of the things you’d rather not tell me.”

It takes Stan a moment to push that particular memory down, then another to get over his surprise that Ford recalls something Stan mentioned in passing thirty years ago. Then again, Ford always did have a better memory than him, even before the mind wipe thing.

“It’s not a never,” he finally offers, “but it is a not right now.”

“Understandable.” Ford takes another minute to think. “Tell me why I’m banned from airplanes.”

Stan can’t help himself; he bursts out laughing. Ford smacks him upside the head, and he’s trying to scowl, but the corner of his mouth keeps ticcing up. “I don’t even want to think about the criminal record I must have here,” he says.

“You definitely don’t. ‘K, so it was Soos’s birthday–”

Stan rambles, deviating now and then to complain about airport security, the safety committee, and the entire U.S. government, but Ford never interrupts. He’s watching Stan with the kind of focus he usually reserves for his nerd books and gadgets, like Stan’s story is something he cares about, like _Stan_ is something he cares about, and it’s almost like–

maybe this will work out after all.

*****

It becomes a part of their routine.

They’ll sit on the couch with a drink, or on the floor with a card game (and honestly? The entire gambling dimension can go to hell for teaching Ford how to play such a mean hand of blackjack, or whatever the alien version of that is) and they’ll just hang out for bit, but eventually one of them will say:

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?”

or, “Was there any place you went that you might have liked to stay?”

They start like that, easy questions and easy answers. There’s so much they don’t know about each other, so many easy stories to tell.

But they run out, of course, and they’ve both got more than their fair share of hard stories.

Things like:

“How did you get that scar on your neck?”

or, “How many times have you been to jail?”

(Stan’s a little surprised that Ford’s answer to the second question isn’t “zero,” but that’s life for you).

So Stan tells Ford how he got the scar on his neck (knife fight), and Ford scoots over to give him a hug.

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, and it sounds kinda thick, like he’s choked up.

Stan says:

“You messed up our card game,” and he’s definitely not crying, it’s just dust from Ford’s old sweater.

(The week before they set sail, Ford tells him about those last few months in Gravity Falls thirty years ago, about Bill and the portal and dream horrors blurring with real horrors until he couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep or even alive, and Stan doesn’t say anything, because what is there to say about something like that?

He just holds Ford until his brother stops shaking.

They pick the pieces and move on together).

*****

It becomes a part of their lives.

It’s not as structured now. They don’t sit on a couch or the floor and ask for a story.

It’s sporadic, it’s natural, like siblings, like life.

Ford will say:

“I haven’t seen anything like this since–” and “This reminds me of–”

and Stan will put aside his fishing rod, Stan will say:

“Well don’t leave me hangin’."

Stan will say:

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen since–” and “This is kinda like–”

and Ford will close his journal, Ford will say:

“Tell me about it.”

So Ford always says–

“Thank you for telling me.”

So Stan doesn’t always say anything especially meaningful, but he always throws his arm around Ford’s shoulder, and that makes Ford smile.

So Stan sometimes musses Ford’s hair and they start shoving at each other, but that’s all part of the fun.

Stan thinks he shouldn’t be surprised that actual communication has made their relationship stronger, given a complete lack of it is what ruined everything all those years ago, but he is a little surprised, and that’s life for you.

But now he knows why Ford hates the smell of cabbage and flinches from the microwave beeping and wakes up from nightmares of alien monsters Stan can’t even picture.

And Ford knows, too, why Stan hates the smell of things burning and flinches from backfiring cars and yeah, wakes up from nightmares of regular old human monsters they can both picture a little too easily.

So Stan knows why Ford gets so excited over some alien octopus thing. So Ford knows why Stan likes reality TV, even if Stan swears he doesn’t like it _that_ much.

So they pick up the pieces and move on together.

That’s what Stan has always wanted, and now he knows that Ford wants it, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a break from staying up late to write stuff and instead got up at 5am to write this before an algebra test instead of, you know, studying for the algebra test. If you catch any typos please hmu my 5am brain is a lot worse than my 11pm brain
> 
> title is from “Laughter Lines” by Bastille


	10. I Can Feel Your Pulse in the Pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper searches for an author and finds a family member

Dipper barely remembers what he’d been planning to do with his summer before he found the journal.

(That’s not entirely true, actually; he didn’t have any plans at all because he expected this summer to be awful and boring minus whatever Mabel dragged him into).

Now, though–

Now he’s got a mystery. A whole bunch of them! Monsters and magic and a thousand other things, all laid out in clean sketches and elegant cursive.

(He tries copying the writing at first when he makes his own entries, but gives up quickly. Another day, maybe).

The biggest mystery of all, the one that consumes his every waking moment when he isn’t playing with Mabel or crushing on Wendy or running screaming from yet another monster, is the identity of the Author.

(He always thinks of him like that – the Author, capital A, befitting the mythical figure he envisions would write such a book).

It doesn’t even take twenty-four hours for him to decide that he’s going to learn everything he can about Gravity Falls and the man who wrote the journal.

*****

Here’s what Dipper knows about the Author:

  1. He's brilliant. His codes and ciphers and equations keep Dipper up long into the night, chewing his pen with alternate excitement and frustration. He figures a few of them out, but it’s hard to crack a code without a key.
  2. He’s weird. Enough said.
  3. He’s lonely. He had friends at some point, but by the time the journal abruptly ends halfway through it seems like it’s just him.
  4. Something happened to him – something bad.  
(Dipper looks at the last few pages, sprawling with slitted eyes and panicked entreaties to TRUST NO ONE and wonders what had happened to this strange, inquisitive person who named things after sci-fi monsters and bad puns that could send him spiraling like this. He wonders if he wants to know).



*****

Stan doesn’t like talking about the Author.

Dipper tries once, after the whole zombie thing. Stan bites his head off more than he did over the aforementioned zombie thing.

It kind of stings, for Stan to keep snapping at and dismissing him, but Dipper can’t help but feel that his uncle looked more sad than angry when he left the room.

*****

Here’s what Dipper thinks he knows about the Author:

  1. He’s still alive, somewhere. Dipper doesn’t really have any proof for this one, he just sort of… feels it.
  2. He has six fingers. The journal’s emblem does, but again, no real proof.
  3. …..
  4. He’d be the sort of person Dipper could, just maybe, have as a friend.



  
*****

The summer passes with one wild adventure after another, but Dipper’s still no closer to finding the Author.

He’s found a bunker, a shapeshifter, and a man who used to work directly with the Author, but he still hasn’t found the person he’s searching for.

Summer’s almost over, and he starts to wonder if this is a mystery he just wasn’t meant to solve.

*****

A few days after they recover McGucket’s memories, Dipper realizes he’d rather live than solve any mystery.

He comes to this conclusion while struggling to hang on to a wall and his composure, screaming at his sister to shut down the doomsday device in their basement while his uncle (?) begs her not to.

“I trust you,” Mabel says to Stan, and the world whites out.

*****

Out of all the thousands of theories Dipper had considered, the Author being family was never one of them.

*****

Here’s what Dipper knows about Ford:

  1. He’s brilliant. The type and scope and scale of things he talks about makes Dipper’s head spin.
  2. He’s weird. He’s… he’s just weird.
  3. He’s lonely. Who wouldn’t be, after thirty years in places Dipper can’t even imagine?  
(who wouldn’t be, without their twin?)
  4. Something bad happened to him. Bill is the worst kind of “something bad” Dipper could ever think of, and Ford’s been hunted by him for years.
  5. He’s definitely the kind of person Dipper could have as a friend.



*****

The world ends, and and then it doesn’t, and it looks like they might all be okay after all.

Stan’s memories are coming back and Ford is slowly learning to trust again and everyone’s bumps and bruises are healing.

(He and Mabel catch Stan and Ford asleep together in front of the TV one morning. Mabel takes a picture. He adds a drawing to the journal).

He flips back through the journal, stopping on the pages with Bill. The blood and ink and fear on the pages make his stomach twist a bit more this time around. He knows Ford wants to destroy his work. He has a different idea.

*****

Dipper sits with Ford on a log.

Ford is gesturing expansively as he talks, white bandages showing under his red sweater when the cuffs slip. His injuries don’t seem to be slowing him down all that much. By now, Dipper’s pretty sure there’s not a lot that can.

The journals are gone, somewhere down in the bottomless pit. Dipper doesn’t regret it, really, and even if he did it’s not his loss to regret.

(It is, a little; at least a third of the entries in that last book are his, but it was always Ford’s journal, Ford’s story, and his to decide how it ends).

Besides, he has something better than a single journal now. He has the man who wrote it.

*****

Ford is still the Author, but he’s a lot more than that.

He’s mentor, friend, confident.

He’s family.

Dipper sees the way his eyes light up when he looks at him and Mabel, hears the way his voice softens, feels the way he puts his whole body into a hug.

(He feels the way Ford hangs on like he expects every hug to be the last, and Dipper always hangs on right back, hoping Ford can tell that he’s not leaving, even if he’s not ready to be his apprentice just yet).

The day before he leaves, Ford gives him the secret of Gravity Falls, the Theory of Weirdness, the thing he’s been searching for all summer long.

Dipper gives Ford his real name in return.

The way Ford smiles at him almost makes him feel like it’s a fair trade.

*****

Dipper leaves Gravity Falls a little older, a little wiser, and just as curious.

He’s fought monsters, solved mysteries, and survived the apocalypse. Not bad for a just-turned thirteen-year-old.

He’s got his sister at his side and family and friends, new and old, at his back.

He knows he’s not leaving forever. He’ll be back, probably sooner than he thinks.

It’ll take more than a single summer to learn everything there is to know about that strange little town.

Next time, he’ll have more than a journal that tells its story.

He’ll have the people who lived it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “so Hanna are you still super jazzed about how Ford was basically introduced from episode 1 with the rest of the family?”  
> •Yes  
> •Definitely  
> •Absolutely  
> it's midterm week and idk if I'm feeling this one, but I’m also super jazzed about Dipper and Ford; like imagine meeting your idol and they’re your family and also really into the same things you are. Wild
> 
> title is from “Poet” by Bastille


	11. I’ve Got Demons (They Feed on Insecurities I Have)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Bill and a lot of psychological garbage on Bill’s part, set throughout the series

“Wow, you sure do have a lot of bad memories, Fordsy.”

Ford’s stomach twists, and he immediately quashes any emotional response he might have over those ‘bad memories.’

It doesn’t fool Bill, of course.

“Sorry, Sixer, didn’t mean to dig up any lingering trauma!” Bill laughs, like what he’d said was funny.

Ford smiles along, even though his stomach is still in knots, even though he doesn’t get the joke. “It’s nothing,” he says.

That doesn’t fool Bill either.

“Lying to me?” Bill tuts, like he’s disappointed.

The sick feeling gets worse. “No! No, just… it’s nothing to concern yourself with.”

(If Bill looks too closely, sees too many things he doesn’t like, will he decide Ford just isn’t worth it? Will he up and leave like–)

Bill’s eye is crinkled in that way Ford recognizes as a smile. “Aw c’mon, smart guy, you can talk to me! Or don’t; it’s all the same to me. I know it all already, what people said and did to you and how it made you feel. I’ll tell you, those are some r o u g h memories, pal!” Bill darts around his head, a flash of yellow here and gone in his peripheral vision. “You’re kind of a mess, aren’t you?"

Ford detachedly wonders if it’s possible to vomit in the mindscape. If his stomach twists up any more, he might have the dubious honor of being the first to find out.

“Good thing I don’t care about any of that!” Bill’s tiny body flickers like a nightlight. Ford’s pretty sure that’s a sign of happiness. “You people can’t help your little emotional responses to things, but that doesn’t matter to me. You’ve still got that big brain of yours!"

He counts off his exhale and smiles in between. “That’s true.”

“Stick with me, IQ,” Bill says, flinging his arms out to the mindscape. “You’re gonna show them all someday.”

Ford banishes the last of his lingering nausea and leans in to get a better look at the equation his friend has pulled up.

Bill always knows what to say.

*****

In normal vernacular, the word ‘laughter’ has happy connotations. People usually laugh and hear laughter when they’re happy or relieved or excited.

If Ford hears Bill laughing one more time, he thinks he might lose his mind.

Bill’s laughter has always been a little too loud, a little too manic, but Ford dismissed that as a side effect of a being as powerful and incomprehensible as Bill trying to communicate in a much more limited space. Surely, he’d told himself, there was nothing more to it than that.

He supposes he can add himself to the list of people who have lied to him.

“Feeling sorry for yourself again, Sixer?”

He wants to be angry, but he’s just so tired. Tired of being lied to, tired of being used, tired of being betrayed, and of course, tired from being awake for… fifty-two…..fifty-three….

(days? hours?)

a long time.

Bill cackles. Somewhere outside his head, Ford can feel pressure on his ears where he’s clapped his hands over them. It doesn’t help.

He reaches for the anger, the betrayal, the pain of recently-fractured ribs, uses it to steady his resolve and raise his voice. “I won’t let you into this world. You’re not coming through!”

Bill finds that even funnier than his supposed self-pity. “ _Let me?_ I don’t need you to _let me_ do anything, genius!”

(Bill used to say that word with something like pride, like encouragement. These days it sounds mocking, derogatory.

Ford knows which one is the truth, now that it’s too late).

“I’ve got loads of other ideas! I planned for e v e r y t h i n g. You think I picked you because you were smart? I picked you because you were _gullible,_  Stanford!”

_Stupid foolish w e a k_

"You were so desperate for someone’s approval you listened to _me!_ ” Bill’s body flickers like a dying motel sign. “Me!” He wipes an imaginary tear from his eye.

“I don’t need you,” Ford snaps, and he means it. “I don’t need anyone!”

(He maybe means that one a little less, but he’ll say it as many times as it takes to believe it, because

(people get hurt when he needs them oh god Fiddleford I’m so sorry–)

people only slow him down. They only make him weak).

“Aw, don’t be like that.” Bill’s eye scrunches up (it’s a smile). “Look at it this way, kid – you changed the world! The universe, even! Once I come through, you’re not even gonna recognize the place, and we’ll all have Stanford Pines to thank for that.”

He wants to scream. He wants to _cry_.

He doesn’t. The monster can’t have that. Not from him.

Bill’s always known what to say, after all.

*****

“He always knew what to say.”

Ford keeps his eyes on his hands, on his fingers twisting and tapping by his leg. Somewhere to his left, Stanley is looking at him. He doesn’t look back.

“He– he told me what I wanted to hear. And I fell for it, like a fool.”

Stan sighs heavily. “He was a conman, Six– Ford.”

(Ford actually doesn’t hate the nickname, not from Stan, but he appreciates his brother’s forbearance in this moment).

“I know that,” and he shouldn’t snap, because Stan doesn’t deserve that, doesn’t deserve anything from Ford but apologies and a similar kind of forbearance, but he can’t help himself, “but I’m supposed to be smart. I’m supposed to know things, and I couldn’t even tell I was being used to destroy the world.”

Stan shifts closer on the sofa. Ford can feel the warmth of him up and down his side, and it makes him feel guilty and relieved in equal measures.

“Ford, Bill was the worst kinda two-bit conman, and I’m saying that as a two-bit conman. Guys like me, we screw you over and leave you hating us. Guys like Bill, they screw you over and get you thinking it was all your idea and leave you hating yourself.” Stan’s elbow bumps his. “It wasn’t your fault. He conned you.”

“I let him!”

 _I don’t need you to_ let me _do anything, genius!_

“I was– I wanted to–"

Stan’s hand closes over both of his, and he jumps. He hadn’t even noticed that his hands were shaking.

Ford takes a breath, and tries again. “I let him. I let him lie to me, and– and I lied to myself.”

And maybe that’s the unforgivable sin in this whole slew of mistakes. How quick he was to lie to himself about Bill, about Stan, about himself, just because he didn’t want to face the fact that Bill was evil, that Stan wasn’t okay on his own, that he’d failed and failed and failed again–

He's a scientist. Theories should be modified to suit facts, not the other way around.

Maybe he’s failed in that area, too.

“You think you’re the only person who’s ever lied to yourself?” Stan sounds incredulous, and it almost makes Ford smile.

“You’re a self-described ‘two-bit conman’. Lying to everyone is your job.”

“And I’m damn good at it,” Stan says, absurdly proud, and Ford does smile this time. “Ford, listen. I know you blame yourself for the whole Bill thing–“

"Because it was _my fault_ –”

“That’s not true!” Stan sounds angry, but at whom (or what), Ford’s not sure. “You made a _mistake,_  Ford, and you’ve been through hell to fix it.” Ford’s expression is probably bordering on mulish at this point, because Stan rolls his eyes. "Look, do you blame me for pushing you into the portal?”

“ _No_.” It comes out sharper than he meant it to, but that doesn’t matter. He wants – needs – his brother to know that he doesn’t blame him for that.

(He did, for years, but eventually his anger and hurt wore down and he was just tired, so tired of being angry and hurt and bitter and what was the point of it all? It was a stupid mistake, a piece of bad luck, so it fit right in with the rest of his life at that point anyway).

Stan keeps prodding, in spite of (or possibly because of) Ford’s intense desire to walk away and never speak of this again. “Why not?”

“Because it was an accident.” Even at his angriest, his most paranoid, Ford never believed that his brother had pushed him into the portal on purpose. Stan could be rash, and he was extremely petty, but he wasn’t vengeful or cruel.

Stan might have betrayed him, but he wasn’t Bill. They aren't even comparable.

(Stan is a hero.  Maybe he always was, and Ford just lied to himself about that, too).

“You think I don’t blame myself for it?”

“You shouldn’t.” Ford looks up, meets Stan’s eyes for the first time since this conversation began, because Stan has to understand that he shouldn’t feel guilty about this, and if that means Ford has to articulate feelings, fine. “We were both fighting, so some of the blame belongs to me, and even then it was an accident. You never meant to do it, and I already forgave you for it. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

Stan smiles, crooked. “Yeah? Well you shouldn’t blame yourself for the accident with Bill, either.”

“It wasn’t an accident, Stanley; I summoned him directly.”

“A mistake, then,” says Stan, undeterred.

“My mistakes nearly–” _killed you, the kids, my family_ – “destroyed the world.”

“So your mistakes are on a bigger scale than most people’s, big deal. You’ve got bigger problem-solving abilities than most people.”

_You changed the world! The universe, even!_

“You did all the fixing.”

Stan sighs. “Okay, how about this.” His voice has a bantering quality Ford is quickly learning to be wary of. “I won’t blame myself for pushing you into sci-fi hell if you won’t blame yourself for listening to Bill.”

The concept is so ridiculous Ford is almost offended.

It’s also very Stanley, and that takes the edge off.

“That’s not at all how this works,” he mutters.

“Why not?” Stan flings his arms out, nearly hitting Ford in the face. “We’ve done lots of stuff that shouldn’t have worked. Hell, I learned theoretical physics! And you’ve got 12 PhDs; one of ‘em’s gotta be good for something like this.”

“I don’t have a PhD in impossibilities.”

“Then get one,” Stan says, blunt as ever. “Write a thesis, I dunno. Just–” and Stan’s voice softens, expression shifting to something a little old and a lot worn. “Just promise me you’ll try. Try not to blame yourself, okay? ‘Cause I know that blaming yourself never does anything but hurt, and you deserve better than that.” Stan bumps his elbow again, companionable. “Trust _me,_ Ford. Not the little gremlin in your head."

_You were so desperate for approval–_

Ford very deliberately cuts that thought off. Stan said to trust him, to stop listening to the laughter and mocking voices in his head.

Stan saved the world, saved the kids, saved him. Surely he can do this much.

It’s hard to say “I’ll try,” but he says it, and he means it.

Stan’s smile is worth the lump in his throat.

Stan flings an arm around his shoulders and ruffles his hair. “That’s the spirit! Maybe one of these days you’ll be as wise and forgiving as I am.”

Ford elbows Stan in the ribs, hard, and his brother jerks away wheezing.

Stan might not always know what to say, but Ford has never wanted him to.

He’s only ever wanted honesty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure do love writing self-indulgent melodrama when I should be sleeping. Also, this is an open hate letter to Bill Cipher because he really does make my skin crawl
> 
> title is from “Send Them Off!” by Bastille


	12. Suffice to Say that You're Still Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford makes a friend and also doesn’t get eaten. Miracles all around

Being shot is not an experience that improves with repetition.

Ford wraps his singed arm with a strip torn from the bottom of his coat and catches the knot between his teeth, pulling it tight. Crude, but serviceable.

Besides, it's only a graze from one of those laser-type guns that fire an energy packet and cauterize the wound on impact. Certainly lethal if you hit the right spot, but much less effective if you’re hoping your target will leave a blood trail or get an infection.

A ridiculous design, really, but it looks cool when you fire it.

Ford draws his own equally cool, much more effective shock blaster from its holster at his hip. It fires electric pulses at varying strengths, neutralizing a target’s entire body and eliminating the whole lethal bleeding-and-screaming interlude you’d get with a laser gun.

He didn’t wake up this morning expecting to hide away in a supply closet while a horde of angry reptilians tears their own ship apart looking for him, but then he doesn’t really expect much of anything at this point.

It’s easier that way. Less disappointment, and less general confusion when Things (capital T; lowercase things are much easier to deal with) happen.

Judging from the volume and rapidity of the hissing, there’s a very heated argument going on right outside the door. Their language is simple enough that he hardly needs his translator to follow it anymore. Speaking it is a different story, but none of the beings he’s encountered on this ship seem especially interested in talking to him. They’re much more invested in eating him.

He tried explaining to one particularly tenacious group that he’s old and stringy and overall not good for eating, but they didn’t listen.

He wishes he could say that this will teach him to think before accepting a free ride off-planet, but it’s unlikely.

Of course, if he gets eaten he’ll stop taking poorly-intentioned handouts, but he won’t be around to learn from it, which is unacceptable. He has to learn one of these days, and he’d like to be alive to see it.

The hissing quiets and eventually stops altogether as his pursuers leave to search other areas of the ship. Ford counts to a hundred, then to the equivalent of a hundred on Kesslia 5 before daring to open the door and poke his head out.

He’s met with scaly grey skin and long sharp teeth, because this is one of those days that is determined not to improve no matter what he does.

“Kss ss,” the lizard says. Female, judging by the short cranial spines, and one of the largest he’s seen yet. She flicks her forked tongue over her lipless mouth. “Rest easy. I am help.”

She’s speaking a rough version of Kesslia 5′s common language – obviously not her native tongue – in what’s probably an attempt to soothe, and it just makes Ford more suspicious. He keeps the heavy metal door between his body and the potential threat and his gun in his hand.

“Yes, well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t thank you. I’ve already been tricked once by your shipmates today.”

His shoulder throbs. He ignores it.

The lizard hisses. She sounds irritated. “Young ones, always hungry. Wasting energy on hard prey, kss. They act like I don’t feed them at all.”

“You’re the cook?” Even less reason to trust her.

“I am. But not here to cook you.”

“Why not?”

A toss of her head that he suspects is the equivalent of a shrug. “Waste of energy, like I said. Not enough meat on you. Not worth the time it would take to kill you. You fight hard to live, and that’s admire-worthy."

Ford’s not entirely sure whether or not he’s just been complimented or insulted, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to eat him the moment he steps outside, so he does.

She doesn’t eat him. Progress.

“Come. I will hide you until we make port. They will not enter my cook-room while I am there.”

Ford trots at her heels, keeping an eye on the huge tail brushing a little too close to his ankles. “If we’re going to be spending time together, I don’t suppose I could get your name?”

“Bold, little drifter. You speak well, though. I am S’ves”

“S’ves.” Ford shakes his head; not sibilant enough. He licks his lips and tries again. “S’ves.”

Her hiss sounds amused, but not entirely condescending. “Not bad, for flat-tooth. What do you call yourself?”

A lot of things, actually, but now is not the time or place to be funny. “Ford.”

“Fford.” She somehow manages to pronounce his name like there are two F’s instead of one, but he’s heard worse. “Odd name. It suits you.”

“Thank you.”

She leads him into a tiny room made entirely of black chrome and points to a storage area hollowed out under the main counter, pushing various bins and bags out of the way. “Sit here. They will not see you when they come, and I will not tell.”

Ford does as she says, tucking his legs up underneath him. These beings are much taller than he is, averaging about seven feet when standing upright (not including the tail), so it’s actually quite comfortable, if he ignores the fact that he’s basically been in a sauna for the past four hours. Reptilian ships tend to be uncomfortable for warm-blooded species.

His rescuer (?) bustles around, pulling out what looks like several bins of dried insects and picking through them.

“Do you need any help with that?”

The noise she makes this time is definitely a laugh. “You? No, you sit still. Out of my way.”

“If you insist.” The best policy for being helped is simply to shut up and listen to every fickle whim your savior might have.

He hasn’t really learned to do that either, but lately he’s shown promise.

“Talk,” S’ves orders, testing him on the whim thing. “Where do you go?”

“This ship is going to Lottocron 9, so I suppose that’s where I’m going.”

S’ves hisses, head spines rattling. “Lottocron, gamblers and no-goods all. You sure you want to go there?”

“I don’t have much of a choice. Mostly I just go wherever I can.”

She stops her bug-sorting to look at him consideringly. “You look like a drifter, but you have manners. Were you person of consequence before you run?”

Now isn’t that a loaded question.

“…not really.” It’s not a lie, not in the context that she’s asking. “I wound up here on accident.” It was an accident, it was, Stan–

it was an accident.

“Hss, accident. Maybe one day you accident yourself back home.”

Ford squashes the little thing in his chest that hopes for that exact occurrence every day and changes the subject. “What about you? Why are you here?”

“Work. My hatchlings are grown and these young ones onboard need to feed and be guided. I help them.” She bares her teeth at him in what might be a smile. “I help you, too.”

Ford smiles back. It feels a little stiff around the edges, but that might just be from lack of practice. “And you have my thanks for that.”

The kitchen door slams open in a way that can mean nothing good, and Ford’s hand flies to his gun.

He’d really rather not destroy S’ves’ little sanctuary and workplace, but he will if he has to.

S’ves beats him to it, lashing tail upending her bin of bugs.

“What are you doing in my cook-room,” she snaps. Ford’s translator buzzes as she switches to the local vernacular. “I’ve told you all this is off limits! Get out!”

“We’re looking for a human,” one of the search party replies. He sounds cocky in the way people do when they’re bluffing. “It's wearing black clothes and carries a gun. It got away when we tried to catch it to eat. We were going to bring it to you, S’ves. A gift.”

“A gift? You were going to bring me one skinny human and call it a _gift?_ ” She sounds genuinely insulted. Ford is more worried about getting his neck broken by her tail, now swinging dangerously close to his head. “Do I not work hard enough for you? Slave away in here to make good food so you can live? Maybe not, because your brains seemed to have been starved right out of your thick skulls! I don’t want your human and I don’t want you in here distracting me. Get out!”

A minute more of mumbled hissing, some of it distinctly apologetic, and the search party flees through the kitchen door.

“Kss hss-ss. Ingrates, all of them.” S’ves' angular face suddenly blocks out the bright overhead light as she ducks down to look at him. “Good hatchlings, though,” she says, once again speaking the planet-wide language. “Just rough edges.”

“Most young people have them,” he offers. “Old ones, too.”

“True,” she says, starting to gather up her spilled insects. She stops, abrupt, and turns to him. “I have forgot to offer you food or drink, kss. And I say I take care of others.”

Ford folds his hands in his lap. “I’m fine, thank you.”

His shoulder is still aching. He’s still ignoring it.

He does end up accepting a glass of water before he leaves, but only because he’s lost a lot of fluid to the overly-warm temperature and it’s best to hydrate where he can. Certainly not because her repeated offers were making him feel guilty.

S’ves makes him wait a good hour after the crew disembarks before she escorts him off the ship.

“The dock will be empty now. Less security.”

“Less security is often a good thing where I’m concerned.”

“Yes.”

The station is indeed mostly empty. It seems to be night.

S’ves walks with him to the edge of the loading bay, then stops. “I will return to my cook-room now. There is a sleep-house nearby that ask no questions.” She presses a bag into his hands. It’s full of dried insects covered in some sort of spice.

“I don’t–”

“Take it,” she insists. “You eat. Stay alive.”

That is what he wants, right? “I will.” He tucks the bag into one of his pockets and folds his hands behind his back, taking a deep breath and mentally running through the words before he says them aloud. “S’ves, you have done me great service and will live in my memory forever.”

The words of her people’s formal acknowledgement are a little trickier in her native tongue, but he felt he had to try.

She laughs, but it sounds warmer than the ones he’s heard from her before. She reaches down to ruffle his hair, blunt claws scratching his scalp.

“Keep running, Fford. Don’t get eaten.”

He wants to fix his hair, but it’s a losing battle at the best of times and right now it just seems rude. “I’ll do my best.”

She bares her teeth in one last smile before turning to go.

Ford looks up at the deep purple sky of Lottocron 9 and slips under the shadow of an awning.

He’ll have to run eventually, but it’s safe to walk tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now and then I think about how Stanford Pines made it to old age and I’m astounded. Truly the greatest miracle in in the multiverse
> 
> title is from “Carry You” by VNV Nation


	13. Say What You Mean (Tell Me I’m Right)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford and some mysteries that don't have to be, set post-series

Ford watches his brother whittle.

He’s not sure what Stan is making, but he watches the blade cut away at the wood, listens to the steady _snick snick_ of the knife, and tries to guess.

_Probably an animal of some sort. Aquatic? Anomalous?_

He had been sitting up to finish the entry for the subspecies of kraken they encountered earlier this morning, but at some point he dropped his pen and it seemed like too much effort to lift it again. For that matter, it was too much effort to hold his head up, so he rested it on the table.

And that’s where he is now.

_Kraken… tentacled creature? Octopus? Squid?_

It would help if he could figure out which part is the base. He could ask, of course, but that would take all the mystery out of it.

Besides, asking would require speaking, and he’s not sure he’s up to the task right now.

Stan finally notices his staring.

“You tired?” He sounds amused and

_fond? Concerned?_

and something. Figuring out what people are feeling isn’t Ford’s strong suit at his best, and he’s definitely not at his best right now.

Any kind of a real answer seems beyond him at the moment. Ford makes do with a hum.

“You’ve got a bed, you know.”

Another hum. His lack of verbosity seems to be entertaining his brother for no good reason at all, so he dredges up a better reply. “Comfortable.”

“What, your bed, or the wood table you’re smashin’ your face into?”

Ford scowls. Stan just laughs and goes back to his carving.

“Your back’s gonna hate you if you stay there."

Ford blinks slowly. He’s still watching Stan work.

_Thin, slightly curved… a fish of some sort?_

“–ord. Hey, earth to Stanford.”

Ford frowns. “What.”

Stan gestures with his knife. “You zoned out.”

“Mm. I… tend to do that.”

“That you do.”

Ford pulls his attention from the carving to look at his brother’s face, his mind suddenly full of irritation and lectures and _why can’t you stay in the normal world with the rest of us?_ The soft, contended feeling he’s had all evening shivers a little, but Stan looks

_amused? Accepting? Affectionate?_

not angry. Ford dismisses the harsh words in his head and closes his eyes.

“You goin’ to sleep on me?”

“No.”

“I don’t care where you sleep as long as you actually do it, but I’m not hauling your heavy carcass to bed if you tap out.”

“That’s fine.”

Ford lies there, drifting aimlessly through his own thoughts to the steady background noise of Stan’s whittling.

_A fish… trout? Practical, but not very inventive. Stanley is more creative than that._

The knife stops. Ford opens his eyes.

Stan has paused his carving in favor of watching Ford. Ford can't figure the look on his face. “What?”

Stan shakes his head. “Nothin’. Just…” He turns the carving over in his hands and gives Ford a lopsided smile. “Glad you’re here.”

Ah.

Ford thinks of all the things that he could say, that he wants to say: I’m glad you’re here, too. I’m grateful every day for this second chance. I hope more than anything that it lasts.

Somehow, none of them seem… right.

_Acceptance, affection._

Maybe some things aren’t as much of a mystery as they seem to be.

Maybe some things don’t have to be.

He offers his brother a smile of his own.

“You’ve got a real talent for carving, Stanley – what’s it going to be?”

Stan lights up even more. Message received.

“It’s a narwhale.”

“The unicorn of the sea."

“Yeah, that’s…” Stan looks down at his work. Ford can see it now, the start of the tail and the long tooth. “I know Mabel hates real unicorns now, but, y’know. I thought she might like this.”

Ford’s eyes have closed again. He can still tell that Stan is smiling at him.

“I think she’s going to love it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two concerts and two papers due next week and here I am, writing something that is not my papers
> 
> title is from "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" by Panic! At the Disco because it's been stuck in my head for three days now


	14. Take My Hand (Hold On Forever)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thing based off that photograph of Ford and Mabel in the credits because I think about it every day of my life

Mabel is sitting at the kitchen table knitting drink coasters that look like pumpkins when she has the best idea ever.

She and Dipper are back in Gravity Falls for Thanksgiving weekend (not actual Thanksgiving; they spent that with their parents at home, but Mom and Dad let them come see Stan and Ford while their grunkles were back from ocean adventuring and family bonding). Stan is in the gift shop with Soos, going over inventory and giving tips on how to fleece the post-holiday tourist crowds. Dipper is at Wendy’s catching up on and making fun of awful Gravity Falls television. She’s not sure where Ford is yet, but she’s going to find out right now.

“Grunkle Ford!” she yells, sliding off her seat. “Come quick!"

There was a time when Mabel shouting through the house would bring Ford running, anxious and certain that something was wrong. Now, though, he must be getting used to her because she just hears him call “I’m in the TV room!”

A girl on a mission, Mabel barrels into the TV room, and sure enough Ford is sitting on the floor sorting through some old photographs. He smiles when he sees her, and even when she slams into his side he doesn’t seem too startled. Definitely getting used to her. It makes her happy.

“Grunkle Ford!” Mabel wraps her entire body around his arm. “I have a super important arts and crafts project and you’re the perfect person to help me!”

Ford chuckles. “Oh? Does it involve theoretical physics?”

“That’s right, I’m making hand turkeys!”

Ford looks puzzled, but not entirely opposed to the idea. “Hand turkeys?”

“Yeah!” Mabel lets go of his arm with one of hers to show off the glittery blue and pink turkey drawn on her left hand. There’s glitter on Ford’s sweater now, but he won’t care. “See?”

Ford sets his photographs down and turns toward her, and that tells Mabel she’s got his attention. “That’s certainly... a hand turkey.”

“I can do yours in traditional colors, and you don’t even have to use glitter if you don’t want to.” Mabel thinks that everything should have glitter, but she’s trying to sell this idea here. Grunkle Stan would be proud.

“You want to draw on my hand?”

“Well I was kinda hoping we could draw on each other’s hands, but yeah!" She tugs at his arm and gives him her most pleading look. “Pleeeeaaase, Grunkle Ford? Please please please? I’ve never gotten to draw a hand turkey with six feathers before.”

Ford smiles, a little crooked. “Far be it from me to deprive you.”

“Does that mean yes in nerd talk?”

That makes him laugh. “Yes, dear, it does.”

Mabel’s thank you comes out as an excited squeal, but Ford probably understands anyway. She yanks at her uncle’s arm, nearly pulling him over before he manages to catch himself. “Come on, Grunkle Ford, let’s get to it!”

Ford pulls free and catches her around the waist, swinging her up onto his shoulders. “Point the way, captain.”

Mabel giggles. “Grunkle Ford, you’re the one with the boat.”

“Yes, but if I tried to call myself captain Stanley would make me arm wrestle for the title and I’m not entirely sure I’d win. So, I am settling the dispute before it arises by making you captain.”

Mabel’s pretty sure there’s some sibling inside joke-thing there, like she has with Dipper. Curious as she is, sibling inside jokes are secret and special, so she doesn’t ask about it. She just leans forward and points over Ford’s head. “To the kitchen!”

*****

Ford sets Mabel down on a chair at her direction. He stands beside her, looking over the sea of craft supplies.

“So how do we do this?”

“You just sit back in that chair and let me do the work,” she says, pushing a pile of construction paper to the side. She needs room for her craft.

Ford sits across from her and immediately starts tapping his fingers on the table. He looks at her half-finished drink coaster, which is lying on a pile of completed ones at the other end of the table. “Were you making these?"

Mabel flaps a hand vaguely at her previous project. “I can finish them later.” She sets red, orange, and yellow markers out in front of him. “These are my nice markers,” she tells him. “They don’t smear on everything, but they wash off when you want them to!”

“I’m glad I merit your nice markers,” he says.

Mabel laughs. “Grunkle Ford, you’re worth _way_ more than my nice markers.”

Something in Ford’s expression goes a little funny, but it’s gone before Mabel can ask him what’s wrong. “Thank you, Mabel.”

She doesn’t really know what he’s thanking her for, but that’s okay. Grunkle Ford is just like that sometimes. “Of course!” She uncaps the red marker and sticks the yellow one behind her ear, because it makes her look and feel artsy. “All right, hold your hand up – yeah, just like that. Now stay still, unless you want a smudgy turkey!”

“Anything but that.”

“For reals.” Mabel starts with his first finger and concentrates hard. This has to be perfect. Luckily, Ford is turning out to be a great partner for this endeavor: “You’re way better at this than Dipper,” she comments. “He’s super ticklish like, everywhere, so he’s always squirming all over the place.”

“Is he really ticklish everywhere?” Ford sounds genuinely interested.

“Well, I don’t know about _everywhere_ ,” Mabel admits, "but he might as well be. I’m only ticklish a couple places.” She switches the red marker out for the orange marker and continues coloring.

“Oh?”

“I’ll never reveal my weaknesses,” she vows.

“Underarms, ribs, bend of the knees.”

Mabel’s hand almost slips, but she catches herself before she draws a bright orange line across Ford’s palm. She glares at him. “Grunkle Ford, have you been talking to Dipper?”

He grins at her. “No, just going off what I know about Stanley and myself.”

“You and Grunkle Stan are ticklish, too?” This opens up a whole new realm of blackmail and scrapbook opportunities.

“Yes, but I don’t recommend you come after me.” He lifts his free hand and waggles the fingers. “I’ve got two extra fingers to tickle with. Stanley’s fair game though; go nuts.”

“When Grunkle Stan is done talking to Soos I’m gonna tickle him until he lets me try that fancy pumpkin hot chocolate I know he’s hiding in the top cabinet.”

“I’ll hold him down for you,” Ford offers.

“I’ll share the hot chocolate.”

“Done.”

“Partners in crime!” Mabel yells, punching the air.

“Stanley’s corrupted both of us,” Ford says wryly.

“He sure has, but we love him anyway.”

Ford’s face softens. “That we do.”

Mabel brings out her brown marker in addition to the yellow one, but she’s still a color short. “I’m just gonna make your sixth finger red, like the first one,” she decides. "Unless you want a blue, pink, or green feather, of course.”

“Red will do fine.”

Mabel finishes with his fingers, then carefully crafts a construction paper beak for his thumb.

“And now for the final touches!” She dots in an eye and draws a spirally little wing across his palm.

Ford smiles at her and bends his fingers, one by one. They both laugh.

“It’s _beautiful,_  Grunkle Ford! The super-special edition six-feathered turkey.”

Ford turns his hand around to get a look for himself. “He looks very happy.”

“That’s because it’s Thanksgiving and he’s got the biggest, prettiest feathers, so he’ll get all the turkey girls when they have their Thanksgiving party!”

Ford coughs, startled. “…Yes, I suppose.”

“Or not, if he’d rather just stay home and sort through his family photographs.” She holds up her own hand turkey. “He’s got a friend who would help, if that’s what he wants.”

Ford looks at her for a long moment, then smiles, a little helplessly. He picks up the red marker and reaches for her turkey-less hand. “Actually, he’d much rather make another friend.”

Mabel grins back so big it hurts her face.

“He’s got one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exams are coming up and yet,
> 
> title is from “Hold On Forever” by Rob Thomas


	15. When the Night Winds are Driving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford + a nightmare and some actual communication, post series

Stan usually takes twenty minutes and two cups of coffee to feel like a human being in the morning, so getting woken up by some as-yet unspecified disturbance at unholy hour of the night o’clock is one of the worst ways he can think of to start his day, right behind eldritch abominations in the kitchen and Ford leaving his boots where Stan would trip over them when he got out of bed.

Squinting at the roof of his bunk, he fumbles for his hearing aid, trying to figure out what had woken him and whether or not it would require him to find his glasses and actually get up.

A thump from the bed above him answers his unspoken questions – Ford had woken him, he didn’t need his glasses, he did need to get up.

Sliding out of bed (and Ford had actually put his boots in the damn corner where they belonged, so at least he wasn’t starting this off by falling flat on his face), Stan turns on the tiny desk lamp and steps up on the ladder so that he can see his brother.

Sure enough, Ford’s face is twisted uncomfortably and he's shifting about under his blankets. His left arm had gotten tangled and pinned to his side, and his struggles to get free were what alerted Stan to the problem.

“Ford. Ford, you’re having a nightmare.” Stan tugs gently at the blanket, but it's trapped under Ford’s body. “You’re okay, buddy. C’mon.” He leans back to avoid any unintentional retaliation (he’d taken a punch to the eye trying to wake Ford from a particularly nasty nightmare and the kicked-puppy looks his brother directed at him for the next 24 hours were honestly worse than the shiner) and shakes Ford’s ankle. “Wake up!”

Ford bolts upright, gasping. He yanks his arm free and curls up in the far corner of his bed, breathing like he’s run a mile.

Stan cautiously takes a seat at the other side of the bed. Mabel has told them a thousand times that communication is the soul of a healthy relationship, and she’s probably on to something there, but he and Ford both have issues with the whole ‘open and honest thing’ at times – himself out of lifelong habit, and Ford out of thoroughly ingrained paranoia. They do their best, though, and Stan tries to get a feel for the situation and the likelihood of Ford talking to him. “Business as usual?”

It takes a few seconds, but Ford nods. They’ve come up with a little code for some of their more unpleasant wakeup calls: “business as usual” means Bill, Weirdmaggedon, the whole shebang. “Time on the road” is the years spent in the multiverse for Ford, the years spent homeless for Stan. “Family problems” refers to stuff involving each other or the kids. It works well for those nights when they aren't ready to talk about a bad memory relived, but still want to give the other something to work with.

Stan scoots closer. He can definitely work with this. “You wanna talk about it?” Ford shakes his head. Less useful, but Stan's not worried. He remembers Ford doing this as a kid – just curling up into a ball and refusing to speak to him or anyone else until he sorted out the mess in his head. It kinda reminds him of Mabel and Sweatertown. “Okay. Mind if I stick around?” Another head shake. Better.

Stan settles lengthwise across the bed, propping Ford’s pillows up on the headboard to lean against. Ford’s face is still half buried in his knees, but he’s looking out over the room, if not exactly at Stan. Stan wraps his arm around his brother’s shoulders and, when he’s not rebuffed, tugs at him.

“C’mon, Ford, lie down. You’re gonna make your back hurt if you stay like that."

Ford comes willingly enough, curling up at Stan’s side. His shoulders are tense under his sweater (Stan still can’t get him to stop going to bed fully dressed, but at least he’s started taking his boots off like a normal person), but his breathing has slowed. He’ll either talk about it tonight or just pass out and leave the difficult conversation for when the sun is up and the monsters have gone back under the bed, and that’s okay.

The silence lasts long enough that Stan considers dozing off himself before Ford speaks up.

“He had the kids.”

Stan is immediately fully awake, but he doesn’t move. Ford’s voice is muffled where his face is smushed against Stan’s shoulder, but he’s talking. “Yeah?” _Don’t push, don’t push, let him talk on his own._

Ford’s fingers tap an irregular rhythm on the mattress. “He was– he wanted the equation.”

Stan very carefully does not clench his fists. He’d seen what Bill had done to Ford to get that equation, seen the burns and bruises on his brother’s body when they switched clothes. He’d seen them again, afterward, and they’re what triggered his memory of their deception – the anger at Bill for his brutality and the harsh satisfaction that he’d punched that triangle bastard someplace where he could never hurt Stan’s family again.

“I told him I wouldn’t give it to him – that I’d never give it to him.” Stan feels a flush of pride at that, and not for the first time he hopes Ford told that demon exactly where he could shove his equation back during the real thing. “I wasn’t– I’d never have–" and here was the crux of the nightmare. Stan settles his arm more firmly around Ford’s shoulders and dares to squeeze a little. “If it was just me– it was just me, I know, but, in the dream– he had the kids.” Ford turns away, clearly done speaking.

Damn. Stan takes two seconds to silently cuss Bill out as hard as he can for everything he did to the world in general and his brother in particular. He takes two more to think about how great it felt to punch Bill right in his ugly, bloodshot eye. Then he takes a deep breath and squeezes Ford’s shoulders again.

“Imagination’s a bitch sometimes, huh.”

Ford’s chuckle is rusty, but not entirely devoid of humor. “That’s one way to put it.” A pause. “He really was going to use the kids. Back there. He said– he said that perhaps hurting them would make me talk.” Ford tilts his head back to finally look Stan in the eye. “He wasn’t wrong. If he’d had them… I don’t think I could have held on.”

Stan’s never heard this part of the story before, and frankly he can’t blame Ford for not spilling until now. Some things just don’t bear dwelling on, not even for communication’s sake. “I get that,” he says. And he does. Stan would give anything, do anything, to keep those kids safe and happy. The thought of having to choose between Dipper and Mabel and the entire world makes him feel dizzy, and he’s selfishly glad he wasn’t the one who might have had to make that choice. But that’s the thing, isn’t it: “It didn’t happen. He never got the chance, Ford. We killed him.”

“You killed him.”

Stan jostles him gently. “We’ve been over this, Sixer. _We_ killed him – you, me, and those two crazy kids. He’s dead and gone and good riddance to him and his pals.”

Ford smiles. It’s unsteady, but genuine, and Stan settles back more comfortably against the pillows. “The kids are okay, bro. I’m okay, and you are too.”

Ford is quiet for a long moment. “I think,” he says at last, “that I will be.”

“You will,” Stan says, and it’s a promise. They’ve got a good thing going here, the first good thing they’ve had together in years, and after everything this might be the part where it all turns out okay.

He’ll believe it enough for both of them if he has to, until Ford’s ready to believe it himself.

They don’t talk after that, but Stan can hear the wheels in Ford’s head turning for a long time after they both fall silent. It’s a relief when Ford finally shifts to get comfortable and sighs, his big nerd brain finally done sorting itself out. He’s asleep a few minutes later, restless fingers stilling at his side.

Stan leans against his brother and closes his eyes. He’ll stay here tonight.

They’ll both be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a gig in a week and I'm staying up late to write who am I  
> I passed out last night before I could post this but here it is now
> 
> title is from “Brother” by NEEDTOBREATHE


	16. Welcome to Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A question and a couple conversations – some go better than others. Set during the series

“Do you think they're still alive?”

Silence.

“Grunkle Stan?”

“What, kid.” The words are gruff, but Stan lowers his newspaper, so Dipper knows he has his great-uncle’s attention.

“The author.” He holds up the journal to illustrate. “Do you think they’re still alive somewhere?”

Stan’s face goes completely blank for a moment, then it gets hard. “I’ve told you a dozen times that I don’t care about any of your spooky stuff. Go bother your sister.” The newspaper goes back up. A dismissal.

Dipper isn't in the mood to be dismissed. “But you _know_ the supernatural is real; you said so with the zombies! Why do you get so upset with me when I try to find answers?”

“Because it's dangerous!” Stan flings the newspaper to the floor and glares at Dipper. “People who mess with this stuff wind up hurt, or worse.”

Dipper reflexively clutches at the journal. He opens his mouth to argue, but Stan cuts him off.

“What about your sister, huh? What would she do if you got hurt on one of your monster hunts? If you got killed?”

Dipper shuts his mouth with an audible click. _What?_ “Mabel comes along on a lot of my trips,” he offers weakly.

“Yeah, to keep you out of trouble. I know your type, kid.” Stan looks incredibly tired all of a sudden. “You never know when to quit.” He shakes his head, back to anger again. “I can’t make you stop digging, but I can tell you to be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.” With that, Stan gets to his feet, picks up his newspaper, and stumps out of the room.

Dipper looks after him, then down at the journal. Stan’s probably going to make him clean that weird rock face for this.

“Way to go, Dipper,” he mutters. He scrambles up and runs off to find Mabel.

*****

Stan sits in his room and stares at the glasses he keeps in the drawer by his bed.

They aren't his glasses.

“You would find a way to make trouble for me when you’re not even here, Poindexter,” he mutters. He wants to be angry; he thought he was when Dipper started asking about his ‘Author,’ capital A (and way to go, Stan; bite the kid’s head off for an innocent question), but really he's just afraid. Afraid Dipper will follow in Ford’s footsteps and get hurt, afraid he and Mabel will lose another family member, afraid Ford's already paid for his curiosity with his life.

“He’s fine,” Stan mutters, hand closing around the glasses (Ford would yell at him if he were here, Ford always hated smudges on his glasses, not that he noticed when he was deep in a problem–) “He’s fine, you got all three journals, you’re gonna get him back any day now.”

Ford is okay. He has to be.

He's going to come back.

The kids are going to meet him.

Stan rubs the bridge of his nose. He should have told Dipper and Mabel about Ford months ago, but every time he tried he chickened out. He doesn't want to lose what he has with them.

“You’re gonna have to tell them eventually.”

If the words sound shaky, there's no one around to hear.

*****

“Why does Stan have to yell at me for everything? I just asked a question!”

Mabel watches her brother pace the room for the bazillionth time. He’s upside down. Well, she's the one upside down, but it still looks like he is. “C’mon, Dip dop, you know he didn’t mean it.”

Dipper’s frustrated expression slides down, down, into unhappiness. Yikes. “That’s the thing, Mabel. I think… I think he did mean it. When he said that people get hurt, he just looked – sad.”

Mabel frowns and sits up on her bed. This is a right side up kind of conversation. “Grunkle Stan’s lived here a long time, Dipper. I’m sure he’s gotten chewed on by a gnome or two.”

“It was worse than that.” Yeah, she figured, but she'd hoped she was wrong. “I think maybe he knew someone that was interested in this stuff and got hurt.” Dipper frowns. “If I ask him about it I think it’ll just make him mad again." He mutters something about rock faces, which Mabel expertly ignores.

“Aw, Dipper. Old people _love_ talking about stuff that happened a long time ago.”

“Not Stan; he just likes complaining about stuff that happened a long time ago. And a not-so-long time ago.” Dipper flops on the floor. He's being dramatic about this, but that's normal for Dipper and his nerd stuff.

Time to cheer him up.

“Come on, Dipper!” Mabel jumps off her bed and grabs her brother’s arm, pulling at it. “Let’s go see if Soos has any leftover pizza we can use to lure those magic singing fish at the lake. Maybe one of them knows something other than Billy Joel.”

Dipper sits up, already looking happier. Way to go, Mabel. “Really?”

“Totally! We’ve got to find one that knows Sev’ral Timez songs eventually.”

“Bet I can find one that knows Disco Girl before you get anything at all.”

“Bet you can’t.”

Dipper chases her down the stairs, laughing.

They don’t look back at the journal where it lies on the floor, gold hand glinting dully in the light from the stain-glass window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to stop staying up so late it does nothing for my writing.  
> Also I go back to school next week and my writing schedule is either going to improve dramatically or die entirely and I really can't say which.
> 
> title is from "Welcome to Mystery" by Plain White T's


	17. So Come What May (Long Live Us)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one’s based off that headline “scientists fight crab for mysterious purple orb discovered in cailfornia deep,” because it’s hilarious and also very Stan and Ford. Post-series

Stan can already tell that this is going to be one of those occasions he looks back on and laughs at.  Something to use during an argument to one-up Ford, something to tell the kids about over a hot drink and feel proud when he makes them laugh.  He’ll be happy about it, later.

Right now he’s just pissed off.

He woke up to a glowing purple orb hovering in the galley (he just wanted a cup of coffee in peace, or what passes for peace with Ford around), and the day hasn’t improved since then.

“Ford, I swear if you got assimilated into an alien consciousness again I’m gonna leave you this time.”  Talking to himself, great.

(He doesn’t even mean it; he’s just worried, and that pisses him off more.  He spent thirty years working to get Ford back, and his brother seems absolutely determined to get himself killed anyway).

Stan is too old for this.

‘This’ includes, but is not limited to, early mornings, purple orbs, and idiotic brothers.

Ford has been missing for almost an hour with no calls or texts or signs of returning, and if he has another near-death experience in the next four hours Stan’s heart might quit.

The orb is also missing, and that doesn’t bode well for Stan’s heart or Ford’s general wellbeing.

Stan takes a deep breath, because he can’t drop dead at least until after he’s found his brother, and thinks.

He’s got two theories (god, Ford is rubbing off on him):

  1. Ford was attacked by the orb and taken away.  Not likely, because Ford would have put up a fight, and Stan definitely would have heard that.
  2. Ford saw the orb at some point after it floated out of the kitchen and went after it.



Yeah, it’s probably number 2.

Either way – Stan leans over the rail, and yep, those are bootprints in the sand leading away from the ship, so either the orb grew legs or Ford’s gone AWOL again.

They’ve been docked here three days, and while Ford hasn’t shut up about the magic mumbo jumbo readings he’s getting from the island for more than one of those seventy-two hours, they haven’t seen any actual signs of life so far.

Stan knows better than to trust ‘so far,’ so he digs up his knuckledusters before he hits the beach.

It’s an easy search, until the tracks disappear up the beach where the sand turns to some kind of rock.

All right, plan B.

“Ford!”  Stan cups his hands around his mouth for better volume and shouts again.  “Stanford!”

Nothing.

The anxiety he’s been trying to ignore redoubles its clamoring.  He does his best to shove it down.

Why, why does he have to be the responsible sibling sometimes?  He’s not even getting paid for this.

“Right,” he says, just for the sake of hearing something other than his too-rapid heartbeat.  “If I was a floating purple orb, where would I go.”

Ford would throw a fit about rhetorical questions, and maybe offer a story about how he’s actually been a floating purple orb at some point in his life (Stan thought he was jaded after ten years on the street; he hadn’t heard nothin’ until Ford shared some of his portal stories), but he’s not there, so the only answer is the rush of the waves.

Unhelpful, but the caves up on the shoreline look promising.

Stan uses the time-honored decision-making method of eenie meenie miney moe to pick a cave, and walks in.

He’s immediately greeted by the sound of a scuffle.  Good thing he brought his knuckledusters.

He rounds a rock formation and pulls up short.

It’s Ford all right, but Stan can’t decide if he wants to laugh or scream because his brother is wrestling a nightmare crab.

Not a crab like the kind you catch and eat; those things can’t do much more than pinch your fingers a little.  This monster's eyestalks are almost on level with Ford’s nose, and it’s thrashing at him with a claw big enough to snap him in two.  The other claw is holding the orb that caused this whole mess, and Ford seems hellbent on getting it, regardless of crabs with footlong claws.

It’s absurd, and definitely something he’s going to laugh about later, but right now he’s tired and irritated and overwrought and he’s got about eight things he wants to say, but all that comes out is “what the  _hell?"_

Close enough.

Ford and his opponent both startle, but the crab’s got a better grip on the orb and comes away victorious.  It immediately shows its street smarts by scuttling further into the cave instead of staying to gloat.

Ford finds his footing as fast as he lost it, shaking sand from his hair and clearly half a second away from sprinting after the crab, so Stan lunges forward to snatch at his sleeve.  

“Ford, I’m serious, what the hell?  What is that?  What are you doing?”

“Let go, Stanley!”  Ford yanks away, rounding on Stan.  His eyes are fever-bright, that look he gets when he’s within reach of an answer but can’t quite grasp it. “It’s got the transmission bubble, we have to–”

“We?  Ford, you ran off!  You didn’t even leave a note!”  Stan’s aware that he sounds like a nagging parent, but he feels entitled to it right now.  Ford does it often enough to him.  “I thought that orb thing had hurt you or somethin’.”

Ford at least has the grace to look penitent.  “I’m sorry, Stanley, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I wasn’t  _worried,_  I was just–”

“We can argue about this later, I promise.”  Now Ford’s tugging at his sleeve, imploring.  “Please, can you just help me catch that crab?”

And as frustrated as Stan’s been all day, there’s really only one answer to that.

“You mean all this time I’ve spent tryin’ to get you to go fishing and all I had to do was suggest we catch crabs instead?”

Ford’s grin looks a little manic – he’s in fine form as he immediately bolts down the tunnel, shouting, “It can’t have gotten far!” over his shoulder.

Stan grumbles, “Moses, Ford, where’s the fire,” but he’s right on his brother’s heels.

Ford’s correct, as usual; the crab isn’t more than twenty yards ahead of them

It doesn’t get two more before they’re on it, and the thing doesn’t stand a chance.  A left hook to the eye from Stan and a solid thump to the claw from the butt of Ford's space gun (which Ford won’t fire because he doesn’t want to kill the thing, probably) and it drops the orb with a screech.

Like clockwork, like a team, Ford dives low to snatch the orb and Stan straightens up to cover him.

Times like this are what make all the glowing orbs and monster crabs and magic junk worth it – just him and Ford working together, each trusting the other to do his part, just like when they were kids.  It makes Stan feel like he could take on the whole damn world.

Or a giant crab.

The crab makes a halfhearted effort to get past Stan to Ford and the orb, as if that’ll ever happen.  It seems to realize this pretty quickly, making a noise that’s like nails on a chalkboard before rushing away into the dark.

Stan laughs, shaking his fist at it.  “Yeah, run away!  Tell your friends not to mess with the Pines twins!”  He turns around, high on adrenaline and a successful fight.  “We sure showed– Ford!”

Excitement flash-freezes to shock, then fear, at all the blood on his brother’s face.

Ford, of course, shows his usual amount of respect for his own wellbeing by scowling and pulling away when Stan tries to grab his head for a look.

“Stanley–”

“You’re  _bleeding_  Stanford!”

Ford looks genuinely surprised, swiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.  He glances at the impressive read smear and makes a soft noise that might be a ‘huh.’  Stan kind of wants to smack him.  “It’s not serious, Stanley,”  Ford says, and he’s using that tone he gets when he’s trying to soothe or cajole, and Stan’s really not in the mood right now.  “Head injuries always bleed a lot.”

“Yeah?  Did you eat this morning?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Your blood pressure, genius.”  Ford is the smartest person Stan’s ever known.  He’s also the dumbest person Stan’s ever known.  Contradiction, thy name is Stanford Pines.

Ford looks genuinely embarrassed about that one.  Good.  “Well–”

“No, don’t answer that, I’ve had enough for today and it’s only–”  Stan checks his watch.  “11AM.”  He takes Ford by the elbow and pushes him back toward the mouth of the tunnel.  “You’re gonna let me look at that cut, and then you’re gonna eat something, and then we’re both gonna sit down do nothing for the rest of the day.”  That last one’s probably pushing it, but Stan’s going to milk this situation for all it’s worth.

Ford seems to understand that Stan isn’t screwing around, and only nods.  Besides, he’s got what he wants.  Whatever that is.

“What is that thing anyway?”  Stan asks as they make their way back to the ship.

Ford lights up.  “It’s a communication device of some sort!  I believe it’s a language or code made of different lights or pitches, and I think there’s a puzzle component, or maybe–”

Stan tunes out most of Ford’s nerd babbling, listening only for the gist and the rare occasions his brother takes a breath to offer an encouraging noise or a nod.

There is no way Ford’s gonna sit and do nothing, not with this orb to obsess over.  At least he’ll probably be sitting, when he’s not pacing with frustration or fidgeting with concentration or jumping around with excitement.

Ford doesn’t do the still and quiet thing very well.

Stan suddenly has a thought, and he butts in on something about telepathy.

“Wait, how’d that crab get ahold of it?  You followed it off the ship and then a crab just grabbed it from under your nose?”

“Not exactly.”  Ford tucks the orb protectively under his arm.  “I’d caught it to get a closer look–”

“You  _touched_  the floating, glowing mystery orb?”

“How else was I supposed to study it?”

Stan doesn’t know why he bothers (that’s a lie, but he’s lied about more important things so he’s gonna keep on telling this one).  “Forget it.  So you were holding the potentially dangerous orb, and…”

“I set it on the ground so that I could draw it and the crab snatched it when I wasn’t looking.”  Ford’s looked embarrassed more times in the past twenty minutes than he has in the two months they’ve been traveling previously.

Stan’s grinning now.  He can’t help it.  “So you got into a wrestling match with a crab that weighs as much as you do.”

“Well I wasn’t going to just let it take this.  Besides, it was probably going to try and eat it, and that might have killed it.”

“And you still thought it was a good idea to touch it?”

“I’m not going to eat it,”  Ford says, exasperated.

“Damn right you’re not, because I’m making lunch when we get back, and that’s what you’re going to eat.”

“Spare me.”

“Stanford.”

Ford’s scowling again, but he hasn’t got a leg to stand on here and they both know it.  And he still has that orb, which is what he wants, and he’s going to eat and leave Stan in relative peace for the rest of the afternoon, which is what Stan wants, so everyone’s a winner.

Maybe this day can improve after all.

At the very least, it’s definitely an occasion to look back on and laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently I'm only capable of writing when I should be doing literally anything else and have no time to edit before I slam that post button
> 
> title from "The Reckless and the Brave" by All Time Low


	18. The Best Things in Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pines family game night, set post-series

“Grunkle Stan, you can’t break out of jail.”

“Says who?”

“...the rules?”

“Screw ‘em.  Kids, the only rule you gotta remember is that if they can’t prove it, it didn’t happen.”

“Stanley.”

“Don’t be a buzzkill, Stanford.”

Dipper is still squinting at the rulebook, which has not left his side since they started.  “I still think--” 

“That’s your problem, squirt.”  Stan snatches the rulebook and tosses it over his shoulder.  Waddles promptly starts chewing on it.  “You think too much.  S’not good for you.”

“Don’t listen to him, Dipper.”  Ford gives Stan a Look.  Stan ignores it.

Mabel, meanwhile, has been poking Stan in the shoulder for the past ten seconds.  “Grunkle Stan, you gotta run before the cops get you!”

“I’m on it.”  Stan rolls the dice.  “Six.”

“Ha!”  Mabel flails, delighted.  Dipper rolls out of range with the reflexive motion of long practice.  “You owe me fifty bucks.”

“A regular loan shark,” Stan says mournfully.  “If it weren’t directed at me I’d be proud.”

Mabel sticks her hand out.  “Pay up or I sic my gnomes on you.”

“Nah, I’m still proud.”  Stan slaps the paper money down.  Mabel adds it to the stack in front of her.  She is, to the surprise of everyone but Dipper, winning.

“Nobody beats Mabel at Monopoly,” he’d said before they started.

“She hasn’t played me yet,”  Stan had replied, still confident.

Stan seems slightly less confident now.

Ford had been cleaned out twenty minutes ago, claiming ignorance due to an alien game with rules that sounded similar, except for the part where the loser got eaten by an eldritch horror.

Anyway, he’s set himself up as banker, commentator, and general wet blanket, and he seems to be enjoying himself, so that’s that.

“We all saw you break out of jail, Grunkle Stan.  Doesn’t that mean we can prove it?”  Dipper isn’t as hard-hitting as Stan or Mabel, but he has an uncanny ability to land on his own properties.

“It’s your word against mine, kid.  Who’s gonna believe you?  The cops?”  Stan takes the dice.  “They don’t even exist in this game.”  

“The bank could foreclose one or two of your properties,”  Ford offers, adjusting his glasses.

Stan scowls.  “On what grounds.”

“I’m sure I could think of something.”

Dipper looks up from his cards.  “Tax evasion?”  

Mabel immediately slams both fists down on the ground, chanting, “Tax fraud, tax fraud, tax fraud!”

Stan points at Dipper.  “Quit takin’ his side.”  To Mabel: “I’m sure you haven’t paid any taxes either.”

Mabel gasps, clutching her chest.  “Grunkle Stan!  I am a law-abiding citizen!”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Stan turns back to Ford.  “You don’t have any PhDs in banking, so you don’t get to take my stuff.”

“You don’t need a PhD to be a banker, Stanley.”

“You mean I coulda legally worked at a bank any time I wanted?”

“Well, with your falsified identities and criminal record--”

“I’ve missed out on so much.”  Stan dramatically leans back against the chair.

Mabel immediately wraps herself around his arm.  “Aw, don’t say that – I’m sure we can find you a job at a bank.  It’s never too late to start!”

The nearly identical looks of horror on Dipper and Ford’s faces are something Stan will treasure forever.  He pats Mabel on the head.  “That’s okay, Pumpkin.  I’ve got better things to do.”

Mabel sits back down.  “Like what?”

“Using your brother’s properties for toothpicks, to start.”

“Hey!”

Mabel grins over her pile of money, immediately onboard with Stan’s plan.  Dipper is shaking the dice for his turn.

“Prepare to be toothpicked, Dip-Dop.”

Dipper shakes the dice a little longer.  Just to be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a clue what this is but I'm at work so I can't think about it too hard. I've just missed writing for this series
> 
> Title more or less from "Endless Summer" by Grizfolk


End file.
